Cherry Glazerr Pussy Riot The Love Witch Smart Girl Club
Brie Moreno
abufkp
In some ways, this issue feels like a tale of two halves. In my last editor’s letter I spoke about how the world had completely changed during the zine’s production period — and the same can probably be said again. Trump is president, Brexit is in full swing and our Prime Minister continues to attack the rights of women, disabled people, and the working class. Most of the time I feel like i’m living in a weird dystopian film about an apocalyptic millennial nightmare. The tampon tax win of last year now potentially sees the VAT on our sanitary products being given to an antiabortion charity. The commodification of social politics has become so absurd that Kendall Jenner can now attempt to takedown police brutality via a Pepsi advert. Our ability to be shocked by any of the above has been near diminished. Maybe this issue represents a marked move away from ‘girlishness’, not necessarily as a visual language, but as a state of mind. The pages of this zine are still filled with a saccharine sweetness, but it’s now an aesthetic that oozes and bleeds. I think we’ve all come to realise that a subversive selfie or self-love sticker isn’t going to change the world, at least in the same way it felt like it potentially could a couple of years ago. As myself and my friends move towards our mid-twenties, conglomerates continue to cash in on the beliefs we cultivated online during our adolescence to a near-laughable degree,
and we’re all individually working out how to exist under this new era of capitalistactivism. In many ways, as the world shifts around us, I can’t help but feel fourth wave feminism has been fragmented. So, while building strong, tangible communities has never seemed more vital — I also feel like it’s important to embrace and explore darkness while unpicking issues that none of us are sure of the right answer to. From witches that kill men using sex magic, or makeup as warpaint to face the world in, to unpicking the duality and under representation of the violent woman as a subversion of traditional femme gender roles vs. embracing vulnerability as a source of power. That’s also not to say the love-letters to the women who raised us, odes to femme friendship, or the grassroots feminist groups and activists using positivity to combat poison aren’t equally as important or necessary. Much of the work within this issue is probably as tumultuous as most of our heads feel right now — and I think that in itself is okay too. Because when trying to combat inequality feels like an endless, exhausting and futile task, it’s worth remembering that our inner conflicts are important. While our selfies and social media rants may not change the world, creating work and simply existing when everything seems impossible is a small, but important, resistance in itself.
Ione Gamble editor in chief
Online Editor Gina Tonic
Music Editor Luna Cohen-Solal
Special thanks to: Kiersty Boon, Eden Young, Hatti Rex, Alfie Gleeson, edward meadham, Ian, Rachel Hodgson and Jender Anomie.
Cover one: Clementine Creezy of Cherry Glazerr shot by Parker Day. Cover two shot by Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee. Styled by Neesha Tulsi Champaneria. Makeup by Mona Leanne. Hair by Terri Capon.
COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in part or whole without written permission from the publishers. ©2017 Polyester Zine limited. The views expressed in Polyester are those of the respective contributors and Editor in Chief, and are not neccessarily shared by the publisher, these parties cannot be responsible for them. For all enquiries contact hello@polyesterzine.com
Photography by Bibs Moreno. Illustrated by Nina Goodyer
The Cyberabject
Manifesto ‘Cyberabject’ is an evolution of abjection — ‘the state of being cast off’, degradation, baseness, antistructuralism — aka literally me with a hangover, from materiality to virtuality. In an online world and as an internet girl I came up with a shiny new word, Cyberabject — used to describe an upheaval of contemporary media toward a destructive and bodily aesthetic in a society of digital natives and post-internet art.
GIFs, multiple social media accounts, motherboards and high speed connections. It is an exploration of embodiment in a world of inconsistent human built data, the pornographic desire for real life bodies within screens, uncanny animatronics and seeping pores of human skin pawing at the cloud. It is a lo-fi composition of the body, labour, high-fi robotics, a new sexuality, psychoanalysis, aesthetic theory and radical politics. Its a fuck you to the Instagram ready feminist aesthetic, rearing its head from baby pink backdrops and faux slogan cropped T-shirts. And I wish there was more art made like it.
This manifesto of the Cyberabject seeks to stunt the growth of advanced capitalism’s drive for hyper productivity, for immediate gratification and the commodification of the body — convulsing in on itself like TV static and combusting Here are some things to think about electrons in a glitch — and shifting when making art in order to not between layers of organic matter, #leanin to commercial style work...
Sorry Richard Prince, but stating that Instagram feeds exist or that people look hot and say meaningless crap on the web isn’t interesting. We need more ‘rebel bodies’. Reclaim your body harder than ever before. The rebel body can be described as anything other than someone who is white, straight, able-bodied, cis gender and with a body shape deemed ‘normal’ by advertising standards. Historically acting rationally or looking at things from a removed perspective has always been conflated with the mind and the concept of the male gender, the ‘rebel body’ has always been regarded as ‘the other’. Your body is a political tool.
Before the era of witch-hunts, witches were looked up to within society as healers. This was prior to the concept of professionalism. Professionalism requires a certain standard of knowledge to be proven, and a hierarchy of ideas and positions within society. At first there was locally based female labour, integral to community structures. Then there was the conception of witchcraft by church powerhouses and the trials of women who formerly held a large significance in communities. The power shifted to science and the suits. Born was the concept of professionalism and of hierarchy of knowledge — in an effort to dispel DIY, Myths, Herbal Remedies and tons of unauthorised practices. There has always been a construction of myths, of oldwives tales, of cockney rhyming and of slang by the lower and marginalised classes in their own communities. These alternative ways of ‘doing things’, of ‘existing’, is a good example of a reaction against the rise of a “capitalist rationalisation of social reproduction” — against patriarchy and colonialism. It has been suggested that, in the West, the destruction of witchcraft was in fact the beginning of an “intrinsic element of the recurrent processes of primitive accumulation to the development of capitalism as an economic system”. In other words, to practice an alternative way of thinking is seen as ridiculous or unworthy of praise — these are patriarchal ideas. so you should probably start preparing some St. Johns Wort.
The glitch you see on your TV in a hailstorm is a visual representation of error, when the perfect 01010 data we’ve built goes wrong. It can also be compared to a graze on human skin — like blood seeping from a cut; data erupts and breaks from its original system by having a temporary malfunction. In a society built by, reliant upon and adhering to regimented clock time and capitalism, it seems important to look back to the societal roots which brought us to this hyper-capitalist, controlled, way of existing.
We can break this down by rethinking what is seen as perfection rationality and ‘systematic’. It’s hard, we have to pull apart what we know down to the ticking of the seconds hand; but if we can do this we can also dismiss the idea that the abject is negative or useless to us. Your lo-fi aesthetic Tumblr account and bad taste is reshaping the way we perceive value. Folk art is a resistance to White Cube style galleries. The contemporary witch is also the glitch. Literally never buy a skillfully crafted seaside landscape again. Tell your parents to stop funding the commercial art market — because they’re adhering to Walter Benjamin’s idea of aura, of objects carrying tremendous value because they were made by a rich white guy who has three degrees or because it was touched by a celebrity. I want guttural aura. I want spells and potions conjuring art that lives between the digital and the physical, that can’t be pinned down and framed and put in a bank.
In Capitalist Sorcery: ‘Breaking the Spell’ by Philippe Pignarre and Isabelle Stengers (a really good book) we find the destruction of witchcraft and the contemporary disapproval of myths and old wives tales as a useful metaphor for the problem I have with ‘big concepts’. The description of witchcraft was because someone thought their ideas were more valid than another’s. Science was put above herbal remedies. Healers and community bonds were replaced by nuclear families and dictated professionals. The problems with big ideas and universal concepts, (especially those that MRA’s bring up in conversation to try and seem smarter than you), is that they don’t work, they ‘sanction the vision of pure science rather than hybrid, real-world messiness’ and they ignore context. AKA real lived experience is as valid if not more valid than ‘fact ’— which actually shifts depending on who is authorised
to decide fact and fiction. This is why the Cyberabject is inherently feminist, among other things. The subversive realm that the Cyberabject creates in this instance acts as an outlet against ritualised fact, building a form of knowledge and gives way to a feminised, in abstract and not in gender, way of critiquing and building our culture away from masculine restrictive guidelines. Less like iPhones, more like gum on your shoe.
Silvia Federici i writes that “capitalism also attempts to overcome our ‘natural state’, by breaking barriers of nature, and by lengthening the working day beyond the limits set by the sun, the seasonal cycles, and the body itself, as constituted in pre-industrial society”. This is also apparent now, amongst globalisation. Examples include: board meetings taking place in the middle of the night during a Skype conference, 24 hour brightly lit shopping malls, surveillance and live streams. Do not fall into the trap of thinking round the clock productivity and sleep deprived, mental punishment to your carbon based body is valid if it means you’ll secure ‘success’. Collaborate in your work, and find your own productive ways of working without feeling guilty for taking time out to look after yourself.
Take on multiple forms of media that overlap and convulse into each other. Your club night is an art project and so is the dress you made that actually fits you. Scan it in and upload it onto the internet. Don’t wait for artistic validation. Get your hands dirty. Spread your work like a virus and give that Do-It-Yourself attitude to your mates.
Words by Lu Williams. Various sections of this manifesto have been pulled from Cyberabject: The New Flesh, an essay by Lu Williams and have been reformed and copy and pasted to create this new work. Ilustrated by Marlena Synchyshyn.
A Day
In The
Life
Words by Georgina Jones. Illustrated by Tilly Barker.
I wake up, spread out on my single bed. This is the only time of day I’m nude; the only time of day my naked flesh isn’t layered on top of each other in its fleshy rolls. Spread out, my body flattens and settles still. Instead of grasping at my fat as usual, my hands glide over warm, soft skin. The gentlest of downy hairs makes it feel like velvet. If I close my eyes and just touch, there’s nothing to hate about it at all. * Getting ready is a Special K advert. Pinched hips and stuck zips: Finally, we’re in. I press my hand against my stomach and picture myself and my outfit if I were thin. I imagine my fat spilling through my fingers. Growing. Dropping. It pools around my surprisingly slender ankles. My belly button drifts away from me, across the floor. There’s a distance and vastness of my frame that feels familiar. I let the image go, rewind. I’m back to the present, pushing my body into itself and scrutinising. I press another hand against my tummy and turn sideways. I breathe in, in, in. My life has always been about holding it all back. * I love eating in public, which I know I’m not supposed to. I fist crisps into my mouth, wipe greasy hands on stubbly bus seats and open another pack. If they glare, I glare back. But mostly people look ashamed, because I am meant to be ashamed. My body is an embarrassment and that embarrassment is catching. Still, I tug my skirt to cover a little more dimpled thigh. When standing on the bus - which is only in dire emergencies - I have to hold onto something. I wish I didn’t. I wish I were stock still as the
bus swerved, like the most skilled surfer on a chewing gum and laminate wave. At least I have the consideration to stick my chewing gum under the seat. * At Rowan’s house, I cover my rolls and lack of appropriate clothing with a sofa cushion. Her mam glares at me: this is an ornamental cushion. Her brother stares almost exclusively at my tits, that are speckled with a hormone handful of spots and splotches. In my mind, the redness compliments my English rose cheeks and his Pantone level appreciation for colours is showing. In reality, tits are tits. And what’s the point of a fat girl without tits? Rowan’s hair shines yellow through strands of lilac. She knows it’s a bad dye job. I know it’s a bad dye job. I pretend to like it anyway. We always hold hands as we walk. Even if it’s only to the shops. It’s comfortable. It’s safe. Rowan’s fingers
are more webbed than mine but you can’t tell when we’re linked together like this, only when you look up close. I always get diet coke because I prefer the taste. Buying it always comes served with a raised eyebrow: the “who are you trying to kid” of facial expressions. But I’m not trying to kid anyone, let alone the 45 year old behind a corner shop counter. Rowan buys full fat, returned with twenty pence change and a smile. * If you pull back Rowan’s duvet, there’s endless pairs of socks. She likes to sleep with them on but kicks them off in her sleep, only to be seen once a month when her mam changes her sheets. Rowan says she could never sleep naked - she’d feel to exposed. I joke that there’s too much of me to ever feel totally revealed. A personally tailored blanket of fat, made to measure and fits me oh so precisely. * Back at my house that evening, I lock my room as soon as I’ve returned my plate to the kitchen. Then I strip. This isn’t a common occurrence, but there’s something about seeing Rowan’s hip bones as she lays down and the rise of her clavicle as she breathes and even her stupid fucking knobbly knees that requires me to see my own body. I can’t imagine any bones poking out, appearing beneath the surface of my skin. The back of my knees fold together, even when I stand up like this. My mirror is only dressing table sized; only able to show one portion at a time with a 5x magnifying lens. My body doesn’t scare me. I don’t see how this softness could ever be intimidating. I lift my stomach and let it fall. The same with my tits. I’m not
sure what I’m expecting - as if they’ll avoid gravity and float off on their own. I wonder how such a fat person can possibly have so little arse. * Back in bed, scrolling through my phone and catching up on my URL day, one hand unconsciously plays with my pussy. I never knew what to call it before I started watching porn, the BBW kind that let me see how my body would move during sex before I ever had any of my own. It still doesn’t appeal to me - the porn, not the sex - but the title of “pussy” stuck with me. It’s powerful, it’s pretty and I like to hiss the esses through my teeth when I speak of my sex. The warm wetness is comforting, it always has been. It’s not especially pleasant, just familiar. I wonder if one day I won’t be able to reach down there. If my body keeps growing and growing until I’m Channel 4 documentary worthy. I think I’d miss dozing off to sleep with a hand against my stubbly front more than actual shagging. I double tap my last picture on Instagram, set an alarm and throw the phone across the room so I have to answer my alarm in the morning. Sundays are always weird, always the same. Today was no different to most and it will be the same next week, just with a slightly more defined knowledge of protons and neutrons from Mr Black’s class. I drift off, fantasising of a school uniform that consisted of a circle skirt rather than a pencil one. Anticipating another week of almost invisible aggressions and uncomfortable control pants.
“Getting ready is a Special K advert. Pinched hips and stuck zips: Finally, we’re in.”
Little Hoe Peep At the best of times, the concept of the muse is a loaded one. So often used to place women in a passive role — to reduce their contribution to the art world as nothing more than the focal point of the male gaze, — there’s not many femmes that’ll wear the role of muse as a badge of honour as opposed to a curse.
or sponsored Instagram posts, nor does she peddle pseudopolitical body positivity under a guise of wellness. Instead, she’s pulling together looks using drug store makeup products, providing some much needed positive visibility for all of us plus sized women that don’t fit the ‘acceptable’ mould of many curvy However, with the rise of Instagram models, and flying a flag for every and social media in general giving single ‘weird’ femme who grew up young women, femmes, and queer feeling the impossiblity of fitting in. people autonomy over their projected image, it could easily be argued the Teaming up with long time Polyester age of traditional, passive muses’ is contributor, Laurence Philomene, long gone. Instead we have girls like the pair represent many of the Wolfie — a multi-talented, Montreal amazing things about making work dwelling, nail tech/make up artist and with your best friend. Bucking the all round inspiration. Refusing to bow traditional muse/artist dynamic, to the fashion industry’s rigid beauty Wolfie and Laurence are an IRL standards — or any other industry manifestation of what collaboration restrictions for that matter — she’s should look like in 2017. Spending the type of girl that’ll send you down as much time time watching trashy a rabbit hole resulting in hours of television and consuming copious double tapping and cyber crushing. amounts of snacks as they do putting together editorials, across Wolfie represents a different the following pages the pair sit incarnation of the aspirational down to discuss selfies, the gay young woman. She may not be agenda, creative dynamics and the racking in corperate sponsorships importance of their friendship...
HOW WE MET Wolfie: Well I remember before we actually met I followed you on Tumblr for a long time. Laurence: My number one fan girl over here! Wolfie: and I was like oh my god they’re so pretty and so cool ! I wish they were my friends. Laurence: Then we officially met like four years ago at like a zine convention. Wolfie: Yeah it was a zine fair, and I went to your table specifically because I was like oh my god they’re going to be here. Laurence: What a nerd !!! LOL. Somehow we ended up friends on facebook but I
don’t think we talked for a really long time. Wolfie: No. Were we friends on Facebook before we actually met for the first time? Laurence: Yeah !! ‘Cause I totally knew who you were. And then we both ended up somehow at a photoshoot at our friend Marie Jane’s house. Wolfie: Oh yeah that’s true, we were at Marie Jane’s house together and then we went to the pool and the fancy gallery or whatever that space is. Laurence: She took a picture of me, looking really emo. Wolfie: And did each others makeup. Laurence: Yes we did. Wolfie: You looked so hot.
Social Media Laurence: Let’s talk about Instagram for a sec. Cause I feel like that’s kind of where you exist lately, also where I exist. What is the importance of Instagram in your life — why do you post selfies and what’s that process like for you? Wolfie: I kind of like the aspect of Instagram where it makes celebrity more democratic, like anyone can become famous. Laurence: Anyone can be harassed! Wolfie: There’s a lot of negative parts of it and i know a lot of people who
have hundreds of thousands of followers, and it’s horrible and they hate it, but also it’s a way to put out work and looks — and establish yourself from your own bedroom. Like you don’t actually need any real outside contact, [laughs]. Laurence: A real 21st century romance right here. Wolfie: I don’t actually like going to bars or parties anymore, which is where I used to get really dressed up, pull looks and get like validation or show off and whatever. So it’s like I will just dress up in my room and post pictures and have done my favorite part of going out. Laurence: And then you get validation, so it’s great.
Wolfie: yeah! its trippy. Laurence: I feel the opposite because I had such a thing for so long where I was so afraid of showing my face on my social media and have it be personal. So I made my Instagram very professional, so now I don’t know where I am with it, but I do have my private instagram where I can like, post all my sexy selfies and get everyone to fall in love with me. Wolfie: it’s true Laurence: That’s my masterplan, gay agenda 2017.
Wolfie: Or like more depressive than I usually am — cause it’s a happy thing to do, but sometimes i’ll be really anxious and just have to do something, like i just have to finish it and it’s not a leisurely thing it’s kind of a manic thing. Laurence: I never wear make up.
The Muse
Wolfie: How do you view our creative dynamic? Laurence: I don’t know, it’s fun. Like it’s fun to have someone that’s always up for whatever — like the sense of having someone who I can be like, let me try this weird thing and let me see if it works, and you’re just like ‘ok!’, and we just do it. Wolfie: There’s definitely no restrictions, we’ll just throw ideas out there and there’s no kind of caution. Laurence: I have no shame. If I take the most horrible picture, I’m just not gonna show it anywhere and it just doesn’t really matter. I feel like we’ve never really done anything that didn’t work out at all Wolfie: There’s some shoots that I like better than others. But there’s never been one instance that we just couldn’t do what we were trying to do — I feel like we kind of motivate each other too, Laurence: yeah — it’s just nice to have a friend — both sing: “thank you for being a friend” — Laurence: You’re a pal and a confidant. Oh my god. [laughs].
Wolfie: I kind of have mixed feelings about the idea of muses. Laurence: What are your feelings? Wolfie: Well in the context of my life and how I experience the concept of the muse and being a muse it’s pretty positive, but I feel like it can also be a kind of toxic idea. Often it’s dude artists profiting off someone else’s beauty and creativity, and sucking the life out of them for their own art work — I feel like that’s the historical muse. I like when people call me a muse, I think it’s cute but I would never call myself that. It’s weird to call yourself a muse Laurence: I mean, you are though.
Makeup Laurence: Do you think makeup is a really important tool for self preservation in our year 2017? Wolfie: Self preservation? Laurence: I don’t know, self care. Wolfie: I definitely know a lot of people who for them makeup is a self care activity. I don’t know what it is for me, like sometimes it definitely is, and I definitely feel better if I can successfully do like a look that I am happy with. I know if I haven’t done my make up in a long time I get kind of depressed. Laurence: Yeah.
Our Creative Dynamic
Photography and interview by Laurence Philomene. Makeup, nails and styling by Wolfie. Introduction by Ione Gamble.
tender by Camille Mariet
Does Your
pussy Have a Brand?
Pearl. Makeup yling by Alanna bbes Ginsberg. St Ho Ione Gamble. by by y ph iew gra erv Photo ticia Llesmin. Int Le by ir Ha . zzi by Amy Stro
It’s near impossible to sum up the cultural impact that Pussy Riot have had on modern feminism in a small However, introduction. when the group stormed a Cathedral in Moscow in 2012, with a performance piece that lead to a high profile court case and stint in prison, they not only propelled themselves onto the world platform — but inspired a whole generation of young femmes to log off and tackle gender equality in an IRL capacity. In the years that have followed since their incarceration, the role of activism in Western society has undergone a transformation of its own. The term influencer has been replaced with activist — our cultural kudos is dependant on how woke we are, and as our sociopolitical beliefs commodified, becomes towards cynicism our celebrities feigning a social consciousness only grows greater. Nadya for However, Tolokonnikova — founding member of Pussy Riot and one of the groups most high profile faces — her work as an activist is only amplified by her celebrity status. Now Pussy Riot work individually on personal action under the overarching identity of
the group, Tolokonnikova has made strides towards becoming a fully-fledged political pop star. Launching her ‘solo career’ with a lyrical takedown of Trump and ode to the power of vaginas; her desire to infiltrate popular culture with feminist messages and reach as many people as possible is as inspirational as those original performances in Russia. After first interviewing her late last year — coming away from our conversation with a completely reenergised attitude towards social politics, fourth wave feminism, and fashions role in 21st century activism — below I speak to Tolokonnikova about finding compassion in prison, gender identity, and what our world might look like in five years time... As someone who undoubtedly has influenced our current wave of feminist politics, do you actually align yourself with the fourth wave feminist movement that seemed to explode during or shortly after Pussy Riot’s original protest performances? Nadya Tolokonnikova: I fought a lot for the existence of this feminism in Russia when I was in my early twenties. I was at university in Moscow studying philosophy and fourth wave feminism was my main academic interest there — I was trying to define it for myself and hopefully for the people around me. What does it mean? It is pretty hard to define something when you live inside of it. So I was reading philosophers like
“You don’t necessarily agree with those who are around you — but they are still human beings and you want to give them hope”
Judith Butler and it was pretty uneasy because it is not supported by official Russian ideology now to study things like that, because it involves LGBTQ issues which are unwelcome issues in modern Russia. So I had to fight a lot to be able to write about that. I always insisted that we always have to move from a previous wave of feminism when you would define yourself as a woman and it is essential for you to do that. We need to move to queer activism — we need to define more queer identities instead of someone that has a more strict identity like femme, female or lesbian. We can think bigger. It is a pretty weird thing to advocate for that in Russia. All prior phases of feminism were developed in Western culture in very different circumstances, and in Russia we got state controlled feminism — if you can call it that. And then we got a mixture, like a salad of every wave in the nineties. Some Russian feminists still believe that we have to stick to the model of female separatism and believe in the power of radical feminism. So I had a lot of arguments with feminists in Russia, but I always wanted to identify myself as a queer person. I would define my goal as gender equality and gender freedom rather than pure feminism, I believe gender is a social construct. So you can basically create whatever you want out of yourself. With your earlier performances focussing on Russian politics, what made you want to engage with U.S politics in your own work? Nadya Tolokonnikova: I always believed in the world without borders. I was a truly nomadic person all my life and I agree that they have to find another version of globalism which will work for more people than it works now, because it is pretty clear right now that it works for just the top 1% of the population, or even less. We
are about to discover this new version of globalism, but we don’t have to say no to globalism. I believe in it from the bottom of my heart — because if borders closed when I was growing up I would have had to stay in my small town. That’s why I got involved in American politics as well, it was natural. I truly believe that what’s happening in one country makes a huge difference in another. For example, take a look at those leaders and politicians who praised the victory of Donald Trump — people like Marine Le Pen, Vladimir Putin or Robert Mugabe — which means that the victory of Trump encourages authoritarian politicians all around the world to raise their voices to be more reckless. Something that struck me after the last time that we spoke is your positive attitude to activism and your desire to inject positivity into everything you do. Why is that important to you? Nadya Tolokonnikova: I understood it finally, strangely, when I was in prison. In such shitty conditions, you have two options: you can cry, scream, sit around and bitch about everything that is going on — you have a lot of things to be unhappy about. But you also have another path, which means you try to find bright moments in a pretty shitty situation. You don’t necessarily agree with those who are around you, you may share a room with Putinists, or someone that killed somebody; but still they are human beings and you want to give them hope, you want to give them love and you want to help them to structure their lives in a meaningful way. Everybody has the right to be forgiven, including me. I felt a lot of hatred when I was in prison because the Russian media portrayed us as ones who went against Russian doctrines and Russian traditional values. It wasn’t actually true. Our protest was actually against Putin first of all, and yes against some conservative values — but we didn’t try to undermine the whole Russian culture. Hearing that stuff about us, and that a lot of the Russian
“Our Gender is a social construct and you can create your own role ” population had a lot of hatred towards us, made me feel a responsibility to not to answer hatred with hatred, but instead in a constructive way, which means to answer hatred with love. It seems like a lot of young women and queer people are using visual means to convey their political message. Why do you think so many young activists are choosing to channel what they do through these very visual mediums? Nadya Tolokonnikova: It is really good that you mentioned that because I don’t think it is formulated often enough and it is underestimated very often. There are a lot of feminist and queer platforms that offer visual pieces of identity to people, and I think we need to really praise it. It is an amazing culture and we need to support it as much as we can. If we do live in a world of queer theory and queer practice then our gender is a social construct, basically it is a form of acting; so you can create your own role. In order to create this role you need some instruments. I feel like the visual side of that is really important — because if you wear your gender as your outfit then your outfit becomes a very important part of your identity. Increasingly within activist communities, there is a lot of negative feeling and — sometimes warranted — cynicism towards celebrities being activists. As someone who has had a rising public profile due to being an activist, how do you harmonise these two components of your life?
Nadya Tolokonnikova: I support every person who decides that they want to be involved in activism. I don’t really understand why we should make this division. It’s a kind of ghetto mentality which I don’t really support because — as I said before, as a person who lives without borders — I try to find common ground. If you want to pay attention to things which would divide you from another person you can always find a lot, but because we are different and we have to be friends. Otherwise we would live in a dystopian world where everybody is the same. So I do support people who have a loud voice, like some celebrities, who want to help a political cause, and they do help! A lot of them have foundations which indeed help a lot of people and I honestly don’t understand what is the problem. What do you think the world will look like in five years time? Nadya Tolokonnikova: It depends on us. I think we will understand more about our political reality, because we have just experienced a huge amount of badly shocking events. We have always lived in a more or less depressed state in Russia. A lot of Western countries haven’t experienced that in a long time, and now a long series of really shocking events happened — like Brexit and Trump and Orban and the right wing party in Germany — I think it will make us think more. Maybe formulate our future more clearly.
Gina Tonic & Ione Gamble get to know the woman behind feminist horror flick The Love Witch. Photography by Cat Rose Roif. Featuring Samantha Robinson as Elaine, wearing ori ginal costumes from the fi lm Hair and makeup by Ren Bray.
The plight of witches doesn’t begin and end with negative media representation of spot ridden, green women who cackle evilly at virginal blonde youth — instead it’s a persecution throughout history of the powerful, the strong and the strange women who rebelled against societal norms.
finding a fairytale romance: Not the societal norms of her peers, the police or the politics of being female. As a woman and witch who seeks to give a man her everything while expecting nothing in return, as well as being a classic beauty, in the beginning it’s hard to see how The Love Witch is lauded as the feminist epic that it is.
While attempting to oust patriarchal hierarchies, witches ended up burned, drowned and tortured for their troubles. Now, these controversial characters from women’s history are reduced to a stereotype of ugliness and loneliness — attributes that are often used to attack the feminist activists of today. While the Patty and Selma style depictions of the Simpsons Halloween Of Horror episode tick all the boxes for what we’re told of witches, they draw away from the mystery and magic of the original women who suffered at the hands of men and gang mentality.
For filmmaker Anna Biller, the allure of Elaine is a crucial one. It’s a choice, and certainly a feminist one. Not to harken to the exploitation films that The Love Witch is so often (and incorrectly) compared to, but for the women who have learned to use their looks as their own personal arsenal against the patriarchy. There’s nothing wrong with glamour, she explains, the problem is when others see it as the only quality in a woman.
Enter Elaine: The stunning, soft spoken and titular Love Witch; a woman who believes the best things in life are love and men, the latter of whom she’ll do anything for. A patriarchal victim who thoroughly embraces the role of being lesser, much to the detriment and deaths of the guys who come into contact with her. The sex magic she uses is meant to entice and find her the true love of a man — the only thing she wants throughout the film. While it’s unclear if her slaughter is intentional or otherwise, Elaine grows less and less phased by the death she inflicts on men in her hot pursuit for a perfect heterosexual relationship. In fact, nothing can stand in her way of
“Women are still struggling with trying to be seen as human beings and not have beauty be the most important thing about us, and I believe in that too — but the strange thing that’s happened is that beauty and glamour almost became things that you would laugh at.” Biller explains, “This counters the idea of trying to raise women up, because you would think that all types of women should be celebrated, and all kinds of choices that we make should be celebrated. The mockery of beauty is a kind of way of putting women down who are young and pretty, or women who decide to choose glamour. There is so much of that in our culture where you equate glamour in women with somebody being dumb or just the pun of man.” Biller continues, “I watched old classic movies and it really was
tti ng “T he mo cke ry of bea uty is a kin d of wa y of pu tur e, wo me n do wn . T he re is so m uch of that in ou r cul ma n” wh ere yo u eq uate gla mo ur to jus t the pu n of
ugh liking o h t s a ls e fe it “ f drag for o d in k is w o n k pin for decades e s u a c e b , n e m o w ashamed n e e b e v a h e w feminine e c a r b m e o t colours� and symbols
“There is sti ll a problem when a woma creating vis ua n is l work - the re is a probl that men have em when they are watching it, th they are not u at sed to see ing w ork created by about us and us they can’t real ly understand it”
“Th ere is no way you are going to stop men creat ing bad imag ery abou t wome n, so you can just have this other space wher e you can go to and creat e your own imag ery. I think that’ s prett y powe rful for us” not the case then, the actresses were beautiful and glamorous but also incredibly resourceful, intelligent and wise. These are the heroines that I really miss in cinema.” While Elaine is undoubtedly gorgeous in this movie, it is both a weapon and a distraction for the character. She can use her beauty to entice men, even to stop the police with charging her for murder, but it makes many overlook her powers and skills — both the magical and those simply inherent in all women. This struggle is one that many of my generation struggle with too: We cultivate Instagram aesthetics and Facetune our way to the perfect personal brands because without these, our skills aren’t taken seriously. At the same time, we are mocked by the generations above us, and our male peers, for a vanity that is now a necessity to survive. Without being beautiful, we can’t be taken seriously. But taking beauty seriously is dismissed as vapid and pointless. Speaking on her film, Biller’s words about The Love Witch feel just as applicable to the everyday woman as to the supernatural lead in the movie. “As women we have had our images co-opted by men forever, and to create our own imagery about ourselves is kind of important. Rather than complaining about the images that men are creating of us, to fill in that space with other work. There is no way you are going to stop men creating bad imagery about women, so you can just have this other space where you can go to and create your own imagery. I think that’s pretty powerful for us.”
As Biller has mentioned above, the struggle with femininity — whether to embrace or distance oneself from it — is one that is played out repeatedly in this film. Dark magic is framed with a marabou trim, deaths are outshone by spectacular outfits, and our Love Witch repeatedly kills men while declaring she would do anything for them. Elaine carefully lines all her sensual black and red outfits with a rainbow trim: Showing the outside world the image of sexual womanhood that they crave to see, while keeping the gaiety and frivolity of pretty pink feminism close to her heart. “I remember being a really small child and my first memories were when I was obsessed with pink. I loved everything pink and ruffly. My sister hated pink, she liked to wear blue so that was lucky because I got all the pink things.” Biller recalls, “Sometimes people just enjoy those things: I mean it seems transgressive of a man to enjoy pink, or a man to enjoy glamour because he would seem to be transgressing his worn gender. But also it feels as though liking pink now is kind of drag for women, because for decades women have been ashamed to embrace feminine symbols and colours. I’m just responding to how I feel, and I feel like I love feminine objects. I don’t even know if it’s innate; it’s just something that I happen to love.” The line between feminine and feminist isn’t just played out in Biller’s films, but there’s an active resistance in her day to day life and the discourse surrounding her work. Her critics dismiss her aesthetics as reminiscent of exploitation films but as Biller points out, no exploitation occurs
in The Love Witch at all. In fact, it has been pointed out that Biller’s films don’t receive the credit they’re due because she is a woman. “There was one review that pointed out recently that if The Love Witch had been made by a gay man, the visuals would be politicised. There is still a problem when a woman is creating visual work — there is a problem that men have when they are watching it, that they are not used to seeing work created by women about women and they can’t really understand it, or have a hard time shifting their point of view.” Biller’s anger at being misunderstood is palpable, and rightly so. “The people that have been labelling my work as exploitation are saying that my conscience was created by a man in the nineteen-seventies; that there is no such thing as a woman creating things from her own consciousness, about what it’s like to be a woman, and put on a screen; it can only be mediated from what a man has created. Not only a man, but a man of a different time, and maybe even a man from a different country.” “When you think about that, that’s totally outrageous, because it’s as if people are still used to women being objects. They think that when a woman creates an image of a woman, she’s creating an object.” The parallels between this fantasy witch’s life and the existence of many women today are eerily uncanny. The hunt for meaning in life — believing that fulfillment can only be found through love — and going to extreme lengths to get the man, only to be left disappointed in the results of a modern day romance, are all symptomatic of existing as a single woman in 2017. While the less aware may think this film is set in the ‘60s, the modern cars and phones — only used subtly and sparingly — give the game away. Elaine is playing the same game as the rest of us, struggling between the patriarchy and being pretty, being feminist and being feminine, all while trying to find meaning in a world that has taught us our only worth is in attracting a mate. The reality is however, the unabashed, uncontrollable love and power of a woman can oh-so-easily destroy a man — if only we learn to embrace it.
Becoming
Womxn Photography by Elizabeth Lee. Concept & Production by Ione Gamble. Styling by Neesha Tulsi Champaneria. Makeup by Mona Leanne. Hair by Terri Capon. Featuring Imogen, Leah, Paloma, Olivia, Milah, and Rahel.
Ruff - Blue Roses by edward meadham
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Shirt and jacket - Serotonin Vintage
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by Photography Bao Ngo. Makeup by Slater Stanley. Styling by Destiny Milah Frasqueri, Rafa and Libin Sanchez.
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There always seems to be a sense of embarrassment when admitting that your identification as a feminist wasn’t first found too long ago, but I can’t deny that I owe a whole lot of mine to Smart Girl Club. Encountering their work first through their radio show — listening in through Soundcloud in London, while they recorded in New York — I was moved to hear open and honest discussions on topics such as self-love, grieving, hilarious yet important discussions on sex lives and about every single train of thought I was having or wanting to have with my own friends. What was extra special was to hear this from the perspective of another afro-indigenous Latina, Destiny Frasqueri, otherwise known as rapper/ artist/activist Princess Nokia. Listening to her was like listening to my own female cousins, her feminism tangible and relatable, unlike a lot of the feminist texts available to me that had no relevance to black brown immigrant women living in the city. Although having a wide influence outside of New York, Smart Girl Club is a collective immersed in activism: they’re selfproclaimed “radical hood rats”, empowering and celebrating the women around them through art and outreach projects, directly combating issues faced by their local communities. The collective makes you look at the fellow smart girls around you and want to get your own DIY group going on. Speaking to Destiny and Smart Girl Club members Milah Libin and Rafa Sanchez over facetime and then email, it’s clear straight away that sisterhood is at the core of Smart Girl Club; friendship coinciding with its beginnings. Destiny met Milah Libin back in
2013 through the New York DIY and underground music scene, clicking instantly and becoming best friends and collaborators. Milah would do live visuals during Destiny’s concerts, which would later turn into music videos together. It was only later that Smart Girl Radio began. Spending time around all male art collective Letter Racer made Destiny ask the head of Know Wave radio for a spot as an alternative female version; an open space for herself as well as female and non-binary creative friends which, with growing attention, would later turn to pop-up shows and workshops. It was through one Smart Girl art show that Destiny met Rafa, an amazing community coordinator and organiser of metal and punk shows of black and brown teenage youth — the two coming together through their involvement in the Bronx hardcore. Together with other members, they have been teaming up creatively and supporting each other in their personal lives ever since. When I ask them about female friendships it’s refreshing to hear that it wasn’t always just a given. “I had very sweet normal relationships with young girls all throughout my life but as a whole, I was always excluded from larger groups and by a lot of women growing up. However, it didn’t make me feel bitter or angry, I just kind of knew I was a loner,” Destiny recalls. The feeling of isolation and feeling like an outcast are also shared by Milah and Rafa, both recounting terrible teenage years and the dreaded school prom. Rafa remembers, “I was a floater. A lot of girls were into me and not into me because I stood out. I was goth my whole middle school. All the girls took a limo to prom but my mum took me, wearing a big black dress and black makeup and all the girls looked at me like who is this...?” If you’re a brown or black person reading this you will know the struggle that comes with being a being weird kid, but clear in their stories is also a lack of resentment — and instead a sentiment to uplift the women they did and do have around them. Milah points out: “I honestly think that it was
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a result of what ‘society’ or whatever was telling us - to be in competition with each other, to judge each other.” Smart Girl Club both acts as, and counteracts this, as a space for misfits, especially the women of colour who are largely excluded from feminist discourse. Urban Feminism, coined by Destiny, is “for the oppressed ghetto women of the inner city who may not know the word but believes she deserves to be free amongst all patriarchal limitation.” It is not a text-book, label or aesthetic but feminism concerned with the women in their neighbourhoods. It is concerned with the issues they face on the daily, such as street harassment and gentrification, as it is with acknowledging and uplifting their strength and accolades. Urban Feminism is embedded in every aspect of Smart Girl Club, with Destiny telling me about the collective’s visual representation: “I like to make it relatable to women like myself who grew up mad hood, super black & brown, and super ghetto fabulous. Pictures of Aquanet and black gel and box perms, archives of my cousins at the Puerto Rican parade, pictures of women in the Bronx, photo series’ of girls I used to hang out with — that’s all relative to the black and brown identity and it’s relatable to the women, like myself, who grew up the way I did. You don’t see that too much, radical feminism and female urban nostalgia… but that’s where my equilibrium lays, and that’s the middle ground for a lot of the women in Smart Girl Club.” Creating diverse images of feminism and womanhood has been at the centre of the collective, with Destiny and Milah producing and co-directing some of the most original music videos of the past years to accompany Destiny’s releases as Princess Nokia. It’s difficult to pick a favourite from the videos, partly due to the amount they have created in only three years, but highlights include the reimagined cyber girlhood in “Nokia”. The video features cameos from Junglepussy, Dai Burger and K Rizz alongside Destiny in a dreamy sleepover with nods to iconic TV show such as Taina and Proud family and
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clips from Michiko & Hatchin, looking nostalgically back at the 00s as layers to the song’s retelling of young brown girl’s self-identification. Then there’s “Young Girls”, an homage to young mothers and Afro-indigenous identity. The video sees Princess Nokia alongside many of her friends and their children as they gather, dance and protect each other; a warm embrace to black and brown girls and women. The videos’ depictions of female unity — yet also of individuality — is a theme that reappears in all their work, honouring the different facets women of colour embody. Their videos capture perfectly the complexity of the songs, an organic creative process that Milah explains: “Destiny will come to me with a treatment for one of her songs and I help develop how we can bring her vision to life. We’re always on the same page and a lot of the video treatments are super relatable for the both of us. The entire process is a collaboration, unlike a lot of musicians, Destiny is completely involved with every aspect of production from styling to editing.” Instead of the intimidating male-dominated sets that are far too common in the industry, their productions are focused on working with the people close to them, which Milah describes as a “super intimate, familial experience”. In their latest project, a double-feature video for “Bart Simpson” and “Green Light” from Destiny’s new album 1992, the video features many of their friends and places from their community, with Milah’s brother joining as cinematographer and splices of archive footage shot by her Dad back in
the 80s also making an appearance. Both Destiny and Milah also feature in the video, their friendship and partnership as directors sweetly solidified on screen. I speak to Destiny, Milah and Rafa just a week after they attended the Women’s March in Washington; a march rightfully criticised for centering white women and white feminism. I ask them what changes they want to see happening in 2017, to which Milah replies, “I hope to see it be more inclusive for non-gender conforming people, trans women, and WOC. We need to be more understanding of each other, and white women feminists specifically need to stop taking things so personal” — said in reference to many of them getting defensive when asked to take a step back. The three will be a part of that change with even more projects coming up this year. Destiny will be embarking again on her ongoing sold-out world tour, Rafa is working on more metal shows and her art, which Milah will curate into a solo show. The three will be hosting more workshops and gatherings, with a focus on different causes and charities. Smart Girl Club are demanding spaces for women that are always pushed to the side, creating sacred spaces and together helping each other — and the women around them— to fulfill their creative pursuits and just make shit happen. Words by Maria Cabrera Hernandez.
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Cherry Glazerr
Photography by Parker Day. Wardrobe and set styling by Kimberly Marie. Words by Ione Gamble.
At the end of our interview, Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creezy thanks me for not asking her about Hedi Slimane. It seems near impossible to read an interview with, or article about, her band without hearing mention of the fact Creezy is only 19-years-old, or the fact she was a once Saint Laurent muse under Slimane’s creative direction, or the fact she was first signed at age 15, or the fact she played a role in Amazon’s arguably most popular original series ‘Transparent’. However, while this is an impressive roll-call of achievements, after meeting Creezy and her fellow bandmates Sasami Ashworth and Tabor Allen, I can vouch that she’s more than just an L.A IT girl. Without making sweeping generalisations, it’s somewhat unsurprising that with most music publications run by straight, white old men, that the narrative around Creezy and Cherry Glazerr would focus on her wonderchild-like success. However, to only focus on these facts would be to ignore, in my opinion, the most interesting things about her and her band alike. With the release of their second full length album, Apocalipstick, seeing lineup changes and a not new, but refined sound, the band’s latest release not only represents a shift in Creezy’s personal thinking, but a move away from outright teen angst and towards the social, political, and personal trials of navigating life as a young woman. Cherry Glazerr are a feminist band, but as more and more bands, publications and brands alike seem to ape politics in order to turnover more sales, Creezy’s lyrics feel more ‘real’ than most other
“You don’t you just that’s the emotional
ideologies offered to us. “Music’s an art form that is full of feeling, emotion and personal experience, it’s a reflection of the political climate and it’s a reflection of inner turmoil.” Explains Creezy, “So, you make a song about something that’s a reflection of how you’re feeling, which is a product of society, therefore it’s going to be political commentary. It doesn’t need to be explicit. I think that you don’t have to just preach things, you just do and live and say — that’s the biggest and most effective emotional way to start dialogue “ This approach to songwriting is apparent throughout ‘Apocalipstick’, which could easily be read as any of our diaries or the endless existential conversations had with friends both face-to-face and online. The album is an effortless weaving of emotion, empowerment, anger and self deprecation. Tracks deal with themes of imposter syndrome, foregoing being ‘one of the guys’ in favour of female friendship, and embracing the grossness of girlhood often unexplored in popular discourse. “Shame is one of the biggest problems, just female shame,” says synth player and guitarist, Ashworth, but while perhaps not explicitly, Cherry Glazerr are a band that combat female shame in spades. Creezy’s lyrics tackle the nearuniversal truths of girlhood, stories and experiences so common; yet so shameful they often remain unspoken about. From confessing to her bedroom stinking of ashtrays or wearing underwear three days in a row, to verbalising the experience
have to just preach things, do and live and say — biggest and most effective, way to start dialogue”
“The patriarchy has to be infiltrated but feminism from every angle, or capitalism are both so deeply ingrained in us, it’s like this fighting” of “acting professional when I’m nothing but a self conscious child” and admitting an excessive need for attention. “Solidarity — women helping women, listening to women and creating a place and space for ourselves — is the most effective way to reach whatever ‘equality’ may look like,” Creezy explains. Apocalipstick isn’t an album packed with politically charged anthems that aim to takedown the patriarchy, but instead deals with the nuances of navigating the world as a femme. Essentially, they’re tracks that make us feel less alone through the weirdness of womanhood, with Creezy building her own system of solidarity through songwriting. “It’s so deeply, deeply engrained you know, women are bred to be competitive with each other. because You know you have to be to get anywhere in the world. Men have the whole world, this is not our world,” she says. On the commodification of feminism, the band — like many of us — seem somewhat split. On the one hand Ashworth says, “the patriarchy has to be infiltrated from every angle, but feminism or capitalism are both so deeply ingrained in us, it’s like this fighting”, with Creezy adding, “and there lies another problem of working within a super fucked up bureaucratic capitalist system, but that’s just a whole other can of worms.” However, both Ashworth and Creezy are aware of the dangers of only considering things within their own echo chambers. Take the term girl band for example — more and more allfemale lineups are rejecting the term, believing it belittles their craft and reduces their creative output to their
gender alone. However, Cherry Glazerr take a slightly different position on the matter. “I think we’re still going through a period where women themselves need to not empower themselves, but just accept themselves,” says Ashworth. “When we’re talking about girl bands and whether it’s bad to be labelled as a girl band, I think that women have to go through this realisation period. Some women aren’t raised in progressive L.A; it’s like until everyone has gone through the period of realising that they deserve the rights that they have, it’s gonna be a while. We haven’t gotten to that point, which is the most fucked up thing.” On whether music can still be a powerful political tool for protest in itself, Ashworth believes we vote with our wallets.“Music is somewhat democratic — you kind of vote for what you listen to — so it says a lot about culture. A lot really famous musicians are really shitty, which is a pretty big reflection of how shitty most people are!” She explains, “since everything is fucking commodified, it is important to get behind artists that you support, and you vote with your consumption of their work.” I meet with the band a week before the U.S general election, in which as we all now know, Donald Trump wins. When asking the band what they feel hopeful for, their response, in hindsight, is nothing short of depressing: “as controversial and imperfect as she may be, I’m very excited to have a female president,” says Allen, with the others agreeing. However, despite the rise of the alt-right, Cherry Glazerr are a band that prove there’s still fight to be had when it comes to embodying what you believe in.
Loving Your Selves
Photography by Nicole tte Clara Iles. Hair and Makeup by Jinny Kim (Kryolan & O.C.C). Clo , thing provided by Pra ngsta Costume, and Wil Dill Russell. All other liam items vintage. Featur ing Ursula, Ally and Vic ki.
Handy
Work
Photography & direction by Liv Thurley. Concept by Ione Gamble. Styling & nails by Hannah Grunden.
Caleb Morris shot by edward meadham. Makeup & styling by Caleb Morris. Assisted by Liv Thurley
Photography by Tayler Smith. Styling by Alice Longyu Gao. Hair by Sam Zhang.
Illustrated by Nina Goodyer. Special thanks to Dr. Martens, Lancome & Nars
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Words by Lauren O’Neill. Illustration by Rachel Hodgson
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so I suppose that le aves me. insufferable brat, so cial climber, spoiled only child of a mother who fizze s with love of me, instinctively protec tive like a wild anim al. raised by women, on ly women really, and you can tell. too sensitive, too ea sily bruised too full of feeling, to o feminine. ears pierced at two years old, (I screamed in the Cl aire’s Accessories with my baby girl’s scream, arching my back ag ainst my pushchair on the way home though later I was pl eased by the pretty jewels I could wear) able to write my na me at three. precocious, precious , presumptive – always taught that I could have the wor ld, given it, in fact, had it placed in the palm of my hand by the women I carr y round my neck.
Words by Lauren O’Neill. Illustration by Rachel Hodgson
by Lora Mathis
BRIE
Ambivalently Yours