Members List
All members names are listed alphabetically. To learn more about each member click on their name below. Please scroll down.
Bami Adedoyin, Brooklyn, NY
Mohd Fuad Arif, Malaysia
Megan Bisbee, Alfred, NY
Missy Carr, Washington, DC
Kristin Carroll, Boston, MA
Tony Conrad, Buffalo, NY
Kristin Carroll, Boston, MA
Tony Conrad, Buffalo, NY
Lara Davis, Providence, RI
Cindy DeFelice, Brockport, NY
Ghen Dennis, Buffalo, NY
Leigh Ann Francis, New Brunswick, NJ
Chifumi Fujisawa, Mosumoto, Japan
Amy Goldberg, Rochester, NY
Bethany Goldpaugh Brown, Kingston, NY
Virva Hepolampi, Helsinki, Finland
James Holland, Southbury, CT and Rochester, NY
Kelly Jacobson, Kansas City, MO
Akil Kirlew, Brooklyn, NY
Caroline Koebel, Buffalo, NY
Jennifer Little, Rochester, NY
Edna Madera, Rochester, NY
Darin Martin, Oakland, CA
Tammy McGovern, Buffalo, NY
Colleen Vera Melisz, Buffalo/Rochester, NY
Toni Mosley, Auckland, New Zealand
Tomoya Murazumi, Kanazawa City, Japan
Akane Nakamori, Kanazawa City, Japan
Stephanie Nolasco, New York, NY
Natasha Pachano, Costa Rica
Warren Peace, Jersey City, NJ
Anjanel Dawn Pinet, Rochester, NY
Mima Simic, Croatia
Joan E. Stoltman, Buffalo, NY
Diane Teramana, Kingston, NY
Angela Tessier Kanazawa City, Japan
Andy Tetzlaff, Kanazawa City, Japan
Matthew Underwood, Boston, MA
Adam Weekley, Buffalo, NY
wolfgrrrl sometimes billijo, Rochester, NY
Walter Wright, Lowell, MA
Ami Yamasaki, Kanazawa City, Japan
Ojima Yukari, Kanazawa City, Japan
Karen Y. Zhang, Beijing, China |
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Members List
Jenna Rossi
Writer and Educator
BIO:
Jenna Rossi has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She writes academic essays and poetry, and teaches literature, writing, pedagogy, and women's studies.
INTRODUCTION TO “STEREO VISIONS” (2005 ECG CATALOG):
Art. Activism. Peace.
Creating art to foster activism and work toward peace. That's the mission of the evolutionary girls club, an organization constructed to resist the "old boy's network" of inclusion/exclusion based on systems of white, male, heterosexual privilege, and on inheritance rather than action. As a combination of artists, academics, and artist-scholars, evolutionary girls also break false binaries that exclude artists from the "serious" academic community, as well as academics from being "real" artists. Both theory and practice are necessary to move revolutionary ideas into peaceful action.
But peace cannot exist without hope.
Hope inspires art, which can lead to activism. Whether the art within these pages reveals rage, love, fear, emptiness, desire or discontent, there is a sense of hope inherent in these artists, who create works that embody their beliefs, daring to show them to the world.
What is art without audience? If I keep my beliefs and my creativity to myself, hiding them from the world, who benefits?
As you enter these pages, think of yourself as both creator and audience. Whether you create out of anger, love or despair, when you express your thoughts and emotions through art, speaking out against injustice in a peaceful manner, this is an act of hope. Inherent in performance of any kind is sharing of thoughts and emotions, an intimate dialogue between artist and audience. As audience, when you look at a painting or sculpture, when you listen to or read a poem, what reaches you? What do you want from art? Do you want a work that relates to who you are? Do you listen in order to experience something unlike you? Or do you want art that urges you to respond?
We must consider audience, not necessarily while creating a particular work, but as artists and as audiences of art. Audience is the connection between a work of art, the hope that inspired the artist, and the passion that can lead the viewer to activism.
"Lespoua feviv"-"Hope makes (us) live"1
I came across this Haitian Creole saying in an article by literary critic Miriam Chancy, and it struck home with me. In the face of death, fear, shame, regret, silence, violence, fragmentation, sameness, and self-censoring, how do we, as communities and individuals, find courage to hope?
This idea has obsessed me for years, and the more I notice the discord in communities-whether political, artistic, spiritual, or classroom-the more I see a disturbing practice. The exclusion and silencing of voices who think differently. On a worldwide scope this involves the influence of mainstream television media and the distortion of truth that occurs when only part of the truth is exposed through narrow camera views. But an equally disturbing not-quite silence is one I see occurring in classrooms around the country, where a culture of agreement is being cultivated. Interestingly, when a class is taught with a title that implies the valuing of difference-such as humanities courses whose subject matter emphasizes contributions of people of color or people of different sexualities-the result is a disquieting rumble. Some students expect me, as the teacher, to reward them with good grades when they say what they think I want to hear: "I love these African American/Native American/women/gay/lesbian/Latina writers. It's wrong that they are so oppressed, but I am not racist/sexist/heterosexist/classist." Meanwhile, these students talk outside of class about how ridiculous it is that they are not "allowed" to solely study the traditional literary canon of dead white males. Because I am a woman, any reference to the value of these writers as artists is written off by labeling me "feminist." Students automatically absorb or discard what I actually say, based on how they choose to label me (despite the fact I offer no label of myself).
This culture of agreement rings false, and it scares me more than outright debate ever could. Somewhere, among all the good that resistance movements have brought-including increased human rights and much needed changes to our national curriculum-the disturbing wake of these triumphs is washing back to shore with increasing force.
Whether this is politicians who cloak their words in "politically correct" language, while acting to enforce oppressive ideals, or students who repeat back the "value of diversity," while harboring narrow views, the lack of true dialogue today on important issues is only furthering the problem. When each side preaches to its own converted, and when politeness submerges disagreement, no true change can be reached. Nothing is learned. In order to achieve liberation, we must act against the culture of overt acceptance and silent disagreement, both as artists and audiences, by listening to the difficult messages and taking the time to respond thoughtfully, creating space for new truths to emerge.
So what does this have to do with the evolutionary girls club, and the production of art?
I sense that part of the reason many of us feel weary in our struggles for freedom is because we must continually confront and enlarge our definitions. Yes, freedom involves basic human rights, including the freedom to protest and the freedom of speech. But, as writer and educator bell hooks2 discusses, freedom also involves a responsibility to embrace others' difference, especially when that difference scares us. When we accuse others (even of being narrow-minded), we are excluding rather than including. We are eliminating the possibility for true dialogue to occur.
Which gets back to the presence of hope in art.
If hope makes us live, and we fight to keep hope alive, what happens at the moment our struggles seem insurmountable? What renews our hope?
We can renew hope by expressing our discomfort with things that seem hopeless. This may involve leading a community in a new direction, changing an unjust policy, or other methods of disrupting political frameworks that deny basic human rights. We can also express our discomfort through the poetry of video, sculpture, and performance-representing our view of a problem so that others may be inspired to think about an old issue in a new way or even to take political action. I have a silver bookmark, given to me by two students, inscribed with Edith Wharton's words: "There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." 3
When I react to attacks on my own beliefs with anger-even though these beliefs include the value of all human life and the appreciation of difference-when I silence voices that call me out and ask me to justify my decisions, I stifle any possibility of dialogue; I block that light. At those moments, my intolerance for dissent creates a shadow. Because dissent is necessary to open space for revolutionary possibilities, and that includes dissent of the now-powerful to those seek empowerment and equality. Artists create the light of hope for audiences who seek to view the world from a new and enlightened perspective and to further understand themselves. Audiences reflect that light in the range of meanings they take from a work, and how that work inspires and influences their daily lives.
So whether you are audience to these works because they speak to you, and resonate with your own beliefs, or whether you are audience to them so that you may take issue, disagree, and respond to them with your own creativity, allow yourself to enter into these pages and truly listen to what each artist has to say. For a moment, enter into their loves, angers, protests, desires, and help create a true dialogue between artist and audience.
References:
1. Miriam Chancy writes: "In Haitian Creole, the saying 'lespoua feviv' ('Hope makes (us) live') is a timeless one" (2). Chancy, Miriam J. A. "Lespoua feviv: Female Identity and the Politics of Textual Sexuality in Nadine Magloire's Le mal de vivre and Edwidge Danticat's Breath,Eyes, Memory." Framing Silence:Revolutionary Novels by Haitian Women. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997. (17 pp.). Contemporary Literary Criticism. CD-ROM. Literature Resource Center: Author Resource Pages.
2. bell hooks discusses the importance of finding the "intimate other" when establishing community, in order to avoid exclusivity (163).
hooks, bell. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Routledge, 2003.
3. Wharton, Edith. Bookmark. N.t. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag.
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