Donate an support Submedia.tv's Ta-conspiracy
Posted October 7, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
subMedia.tv: Behind the scenes from subMedia.tv.
If you've been following the Justseeds blog these last couple years you've noticed it being peppered with riot port reports made by the Stimulator. These entertaining and informative media pieces are produced by submedia.tv and they are asking for your help to produce future episodes and documentaries.
I ask you to donate to submedia.tv's ongoing fundraising drive, get your peeps to, so we can all enjoy the uplifting images of the status quo going up in flames!
We live in crazy times. A veritable clusterfuck of austerity, riots, and repression is playing out amidst a backdrop of growing inequality and global ecological collapse. In this era of uncertainty, we believe that independent media can play a crucial role in helping people to make sense of the chaos. Accessible analysis produces informed action. That’s why we do what we do.That’s why we put out our regular anarchist news show, It’s the End of the World as we Know it and I Feel Fine, and why we have produced dispatches from the front-lines of Athens to Tokyo, to the Unist’ot’en camp located on the unceded Wet’suet’en territories of Turtle Island. With everything we do, our goal is to provide a megaphone to the comrades, warriors and militants who are struggling to build a better world in the ashes of the old.
We at subMedia have been fortunate to be able to count on the active support of the tens of thousands of people who watch our videos every month. So to everyone who has collaborated with us, offered help with translations, or sent us ideas for news stories, dope musical tracks and video clips of flaming cops, thank you. We are extremely humbled and grateful for your continued support.
We are launching this fundraiser because we have ambitious plans to expand the scope of our coverage. Lately we have been producing more frequent videos, and we hope to start producing even more. We also want to increase the number of in-depth on-the-ground pieces we do, looking at different anarchist and Indigenous struggles around the world, and begin to put out more easily digestible videos on anarchist theory and principles. Entry-level shit that you can show your friends, family, neighbours and co-workers to help spread our politics and build our movement.
Erase the Borders
Posted October 6, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
From Submedia.tv:
This week we look at the dire fuckin situation for people escaping war and abusive governments for the relative safety of the global north. On the break Rebel Diaz and Dead Prez remake the classic “Which Side Are You On?” Our featured interview is with Erin Gallahger a journalist with Revolution News, who tells us about “PeñaBots”, fake Twitter accounts that attack free speech in Mexico.
Also, know that submedia.tv is requesting that you donate and fund future episodes and media production by pledging at Fall Taco Sourcing Campaign and sharing with your peeps!
Help Publish PM Press Publish: Understanding Jim Crow!
Posted October 5, 2015 by shaun in Books & Zines | Comments (0)
Our friends at PM Press have been Kickstarting to publish David Pilgrim's Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice - a full-color book which "introduces readers to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia: a collection of more than ten thousand contemptible collectibles that are used to engage visitors in intense and intelligent discussions about race, race relations, and racism."
"Using racist objects as teaching tools seems counterintuitive—and, quite frankly, needlessly risky. Many Americans are already apprehensive discussing race relations, especially in settings where their ideas are challenged. The museum and this book exist to help overcome our collective trepidation and reluctance to talk about race."
This is a pre-order campaign, so your donation gets you a copy of the book hot off the press! Read more about the project and reserve a copy today!
People's Climate Movement October 14 Day of Action: downloadable graphics
Posted October 2, 2015 by justseeds in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Check out these images available to download and to share that are promoting the People's Climate Movement October 14 Day of Action. Four of the five images are by Justseeds artists Melanie Cervantes (the image to the left), Bec Young, Dylan A.T. Miner, and Chip Thomas. Also featured are placard designs by Josiah Werning. And be on the look out for a new image coming soon by Miami-based artist Marcus Blake. All the images are posted on Climate Prints where the images are available to download as hi res files that are 11x17 and smaller.
And here is more information on the October 14 Day of Action. The People’s Climate Movement and others are calling for a National Day of Action Wednesday, October 14 to demand bold action on the climate crisis facing our planet. We are calling for a sustainable, democratic and just economy that preserves our planet and works for all peoples.
Black Panther Party Film Festival begins today in NYC!
Posted September 25, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
The 7th annual Black Panther Party Film Festival is begins today at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem, NY. Check the schedule at Maysles Documentary Center for the line up. This is an incredible opportunity to check out films on the history of the BPP and the continuation police repression against communities of color.
Blue Rooms for Prisoners
Posted September 21, 2015 by justseeds in In the News | Comments (0)
During internet browsing today I came across Pete Brook's writing about the Blue Room at Oregon's Snake River Correctional Institution. The Blue Room is a space where prisoners that have spent lengthy periods of time in solitary confinement are exposed to the sounds and sights of the natural world, in an attempt to rebuild their personalities after the harrowing psychological abuse of lengthy solitary confinement. It's a pilot project, with results as yet undetermined, but more than anything else at this point: it's an acknowledgment that the practice of solitary confinement in America's prisons is torture, and that it psychologically destroys the many thousands of people exposed to it. Read Pete's excellent essay about the Blue Room here.
Climate Prints / call for climate justice graphics
Posted September 20, 2015 by justseeds in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
Introducing Climate Prints - a new project that two Justseeds members helped co-organize and a number of Justseeds artists have contributed images to. Climate Prints is a web-based platform for artists, designers, and organizers who seek creative methods to participate in the Climate Justice Movement. It is a curated site to download hi-resolution graphics under a host of categories that are free-to-use and to remix under a Creative Commons license. It is a site to view examples of how the graphics have been used in past actions – be it demonstrations, marches, murals, wheatpastings, or other forms of creative resistance. It is a call for art for current campaigns, and it is a networking tool for artists to connect with movements and for movements to connect with artists.
Artists and Designers: Consider submitting your art to Climate Prints. Get you images directly into the climate justice movement. Details here
image/wheatpasting by Chip Thomas. Image pasted in AZ in August 2014 to promote the People's Climate March in NYC on Sept 21, 2014.
And be on the look out for new images that will be uploaded in early October for two campaigns we are collaborating with: The People's Climate Movement: Oct 14th National Day of Action and the D12 (December 12) actions in Paris for COP 21.
Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas Opening Wed. 9/16
Posted September 15, 2015 by jmacphee in Events | Comments (0)
September 16–November 29, 2015
Opening Wednesday Sept. 16, 7–10pm
Interference Archive, 131 8th St., Brooklyn, NY 11215
Interference Archive presents Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), a public exhibition and event series which features the graphic design production of the Organization in Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Based in Havana, OSPAAAL produced nearly 500 posters, magazines, and books from the late 1960s through the present.
"How to Stop Climate Change" from subMedia.tv
Posted September 7, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
The latest installment from the Stimulator and subMedia.tv
This week we re-think our critique of the People’s Climate March, then we go to Germany where trouble makers have been regularly shutting down Europe’s largest source of CO2. Then on to Greece, to look at a growing resistance against a gold mine and finally to the longest running blockade of oil and gas pipelines in Turtle Island. On the music break, we have Alas and Savage Fam with “Go Away.” We conclude with a special report from Ecuador, where indigenous peeps opposed to extractive industries, blockaded roads last month, paralyzing the country.
Armed By Design/El Diseño a las Armas Book Pre-sale
Posted August 28, 2015 by jmacphee in Books & Zines | Comments (0)
I've been hard at work this week on another big Interference Archive project, the book to accompany our next exhibition, Armed by Design/El Diseño a las Armas. It's an 88 page, full color look at the posters and publications of OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity of the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. OSPAAAL is a Cuban organization that has produced over 500 posters, books, and magazines since the mid-1960s, with some of the most kick-ass design, ever.
The book is going to be great, completely bi-lingual (English/Spanish) with almost 100 images, 6 original essays about OSPAAAL's art and politics, and a new interview with Bay Area artist Jane Norling, the only North American to work in Cuba with OSPAAAL and design a poster for them.
But we need your help paying to print it! We're pre-selling the book for $13 ($2 off the cover price), and you can get yours HERE. Help out a great project, and get a great book!
(T)ERROR - Support Journalistic Freedom
Posted August 27, 2015 by k_c_ in Inspiration | Comments (0)
With less than a week to go please help our filmmaker friends raise the necessary funds to release their award winning documentary about FBI terror entrapment cases.
Go to (T)error's kickstarter page to donate now!
(T)ERROR is a new documentary we recently completed that marks the first time journalists have gone behind the scenes of an active FBI counterterrorism sting operation. The film features unprecedented access to an active informant and offers viewers a rare glimpse of the government's counterterrorism tactics. (T)ERROR illuminates the murky justifications behind those tactics, and asks: Who is watching the watchers?Although (T)ERROR has received numerous awards and garnered critical acclaim on the festival circuit, there is a risk our film, and the critical issues it explores, won't reach wider audiences.
Looking for Harriet Tubman CPH Posters!
Posted August 25, 2015 by jmacphee in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
I'm working on a big project to celebrate 100 poster designs printed in the Celebrate People's History Poster Series over the past eighteen years. I'm working with Booklyn to put together twenty-five sets of these first 100 posters which will be sold to educational institutions across the country for research and display. The money from this will be a head start on printing the next 100 posters!
But I need your help! I'm short a handful of Harriet Tubman posters (designed by Darrell Ann Gane-McCalla), one of the first posters printed. My apartment had a fire in 2001, and I lost a chunk of these.
Does anyone have one I can get back from them? I will be forever indebted! Drop me an email at josh (at) justseeds.org
All of Us or None: Response & Resistance to Militarism
Posted August 20, 2015 by jmacphee in Posters & Prints | Comments (0)
The American Friends Service Committee has been putting together cool traveling exhibitions of political posters (often in concert with the Center for the Study of Political Graphics) over the past couple of years. This year they pulled together a great collection under the banner of "All of Us or None: Response & Resistance to Militarism." Justseeds is represented in the show by myself and Kevin Caplicki. The show is currently in Greensboro, NC, and is heading to San Francisco in September. Check out all the image and more info on the website http://allofus.afsc.org/.
Craft in Time: A Celebration of Essential Labor
Posted August 19, 2015 by justseeds in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
This show presents a series of large linoleum block print portraits created by Meredith Stern in 2014. This is a work in progress: the ultimate goal is to work with dozens of creators from a variety of disciplines living in many places, and to showcase their group work at multiple locations. These pieces depict a selection of her colleagues: individuals who work in proximity to her and who inspire her. These portraits amplify the dedication and creative magic that individuals express while practicing their craft. Subjects are depicted in their studio, workplace, or home where they build, practice, or express their artistic craft. These pieces celebrate the complex, dynamic lives of our contemporaries who can teach, inspire, and inform our own work. By presenting people I interact with, rather than depict celebrities or strangers, the narrative is shifted away from objectifying individuals and instead emphasizes the importance of loving and celebrating our creative community.
Artists portrayed: Jenine Bressner, Priscilla Carrion, Ian Cozzens, Suzy Gonzalez, Corey Grayhorse, Hilary Jones, Cheryl Kaminsky, Yvette Koch, Jaime Lowe, Reba Mitchell, Sakiko Mori, Kartina Richardson, Shey Rivera, Tatyana Yanishevsky
Beehive Collective fundraising campaign
Posted August 15, 2015 by k_c_ in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Check out and support the Beehive in their current fundraising drive:
The Beehive Design Collective is building a campus of community arts and cultural spaces and resources to serve Machias and the DownEast coast of Maine. We are creating a community letterpress print shop and work space for artists and printers. An exciting program of art walk exhibits, dance workshops and other events in the Grange is also happening this summer. This vital season of local works is now underway.
A Tale of Two Cities
Posted August 6, 2015 by john in Film & Video | Comments (0)
How the atomic bomb destroyed the people and cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 70 years ago.
Little Boy, the first nuclear bomb used in war, was dropped at 08:15 (Hiroshima time). It took 43 seconds to fall from the Enola Gay aircraft flying at 31,060 feet (9,470 m) to the predetermined detonation height about 1,968 feet (600 m) above the city.WikipediaThe radius of total destruction was about one mile (1.6 km), with resulting fires across 4.4 square miles (11 km2). Americans estimated that 4.7 square miles (12 km2) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed and another 6–7% damaged. Some 70,000–80,000 people, or some 30% of the city’s population, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm, and another 70,000 injured. Out of those killed, three quarters of them were civilians.
Another Protest Song: Karaoke with a Message (This Wednesday!!!)
Posted August 3, 2015 by jmacphee in Events | Comments (0)
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Doors open 7pm
Silent Barn
603 Bushwick Ave. Brooklyn
(NOT AT INTERFERENCE ARCHIVE!)
$5 – $10 (sliding scale)**
As part of the Interference Archive’s if a song could be freedom… exhibition, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere will host an evening of protest karaoke with their project Another Protest Song: Karaoke with a Message at Silent Barn.
Another Protest Song: Karaoke with a Message (2008 – ongoing) looks to the karaoke songbook as potential for political enunciation through song. Karaoke is communal, social, musical. With protest karaoke, our song choices may speak of present political struggles and histories, rather than music consumed primarily as products of popular cultural.
**All money collected at the door (beyond paying Silent Barn) will go directly towards printing the if a song could be freedom… booklet/exhibition catalog. This booklet will be included with the 7″ record we are pressing as part of the exhibition (for more info, and to pre-order record, click HERE!)
Join us and sing your favorite songs of protest!
For more information:
http://interferencearchive.org/
http://silentbarn.org/
http://www.nevareztevere.info/
JBbTC 217.5: More Coming Soon!
Posted July 27, 2015 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
You wouldn't know it, but we're working full-stop behind the scenes on a brand new Justseeds website—with an entirely new content management system. I'm sorry I haven't had time to post new Judging Books entries of late, I've been too busy migrating the JBbTC archive over to the new site. We'll be launching in the Fall, and lots of more book covers are forthcoming! (ps. I've been posting some covers on instagram: @jmacphee)
CPH : IVAW in SF August 13th
Posted July 26, 2015 by jmacphee in Justseeds Group Projects | Comments (0)
Celebrate People's History: Iraq Veterans Against the War
Ten years of fighting for peace & justice
One Night Only!
Thursday August 13th, 2015
6PM - 10PM
Mullowney Printing
931 Treat Ave, between 22nd & 23rd
San Francisco, CA
—Print Exhibition—
—Readings—
—Live Printing—
Celebrate People’s History: Iraq Veterans Against the War—Ten Years of Fighting for Peace and Justice is a portfolio project celebrating Iraq Veterans Against the War’s (IVAW) ten year history. IVAW was founded in July 2004 to give voice to the large number of active duty service members and veterans who were against the war, but were under various pressures to remain silent. Over the past ten years, IVAW members have spoken out and taken action to end the wars they served in and to transform the society that fostered those wars.
This portfolio features contributions from IVAW members, Justseeds Artists' Cooperative members, along with allied veterans, artists and writers. It highlights key ideas, moments, projects, tactics, and individuals from IVAW history in order to uplift IVAW's ongoing struggle, inspire others to take action, and preserve the movement’s history for future generations.
Culinary Art Contest for Hudson Valley Seed Library
Posted July 20, 2015 by k_c_ in Calls for Art | Comments (0)
Call for art from the Hudson Valley Seed Library:
We're doing a special seed pack to celebrate a pioneering collaborative project headed up by Glynwood Center. And we need a work of art for the pack!The project:
Six farmers are each growing our rare local 1940's heirloom Hank's X-Tra Special Baking Bean from Ghent, NY. Each farmer will be providing one chef with locally grown beans. Each chef from the six Hudson Valley restaurants involved will be creating a unique dish to serve at their restaurant. To complete the circle of seed, to farm, to chef, to plate, and back to seed, each farm will be saving 10% of the beans they grow to return to the Hudson Valley Seed Library and keep this variety alive for future generations.
Up the Queer Scouts!
Posted July 14, 2015 by justseeds in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Breaking News:
Boy Scouts of America have just voted to lift the ban on gay scout leaders.
The executive director of Scouts for Equality, Zach Wahls, said:
“For decades, the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay adults has stood as a towering example of explicit, institutional homophobia in one of America’s most important and recognizable civic organizations.”
Thanks to Bitch Media and Jes MacCormack for cluing me in to this very good news!
This Queer Scout badge that Justseeds artist Mary Tremonte designed almost 4 years ago and recently redid in gold is available on Justseeds HERE. There is also a poster available HERE.
Believe achieve!!
In//Appropriate Opening!
Posted July 10, 2015 by justseeds in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
Here are some photos from IN//APPROPRIATE, a show of visual and audio media on display during July of 2015 at the Littman Gallery at PSU in Portland. The show incorporates digital collages and wearable “Whiteness Goggles” that make the colonial/military/police violence that underpin white supremacy disappear. It also includes a reappropriation of the gallery space by indigenous artists Sara Siestreem and Camas Logue, who are using it for drying basketry materials for fall workshops. Voicemails from Portland residents expressing their opinions on the subject play on two media players. The show is up until the 29th! The show website is here, where you can see all of the banner images and listen to all of the voicemails.
The latest from SubMedia.tv
Posted July 7, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
Anarchy Now! Chile Elects to Revolt from subMedia.tv on Vimeo.
if a song could be freedom mixtape series from Interference Archive
Posted July 3, 2015 by k_c_ in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
In conjunction with the if a song could be freedom...Songs of Organized Resistance exhibition Interference Archive is releasing a mixtape of political music each week. Check out their first two installments posted on the Interference Archive blog and Archive.org.
This mixtape is curated by Felipe Mujica & Johanna Unzueta on Artists from Chile.
This weeks mixtape was put together by Skot! Oh, host of Sunday Morning Coming Down a radio show on People Will Radio.org. Skot! has been a DJ for the last 12 Years on various pirate radio stations in Austin, TX and also an organizer with the literacy and books to prisoner project, the Inside Books Project.
New exhibition opening at Interference Archive
Posted June 24, 2015 by k_c_ in Art & Politics | Comments (0)
Opening tomorrow if a song could be freedom…Organized Sounds of Resistance, at Interference Archive. An exhibition about music and politics.
Opening Thursday June 25
7-10 pm
June 25 – September 6, 2015
Music has been at the core of hundreds of political and social struggles across the globe. With if a song could be freedom . . . Organized Sounds of Resistance, Interference Archive examines the social context for landmark recordings, the relationship between music makers and on-the-ground organizing, and how visual aesthetics complement musical production and circulation.if a song could be freedom . . . Organized Sounds of Resistance is organized by Chris Bravo, Kevin Caplicki, Josh MacPhee, Amy Roberts, Valerie Tevere, and Ryan Wong. It features the picture sleeves of over 200 political recordings, showing the broad intersection of music and politics. The gallery will also serve as a collective listening room, where visitors can select and play records from Interference Archive’s collection. The exhibition includes written contributions from activists and musicians, flyers, lyric sheets, buttons, publications, and other ephemera. A series of programs, to be announced on Interference Archive’s website, will offer the chance to collectively listen to and discuss how music has shaped the manners in which we understand ourselves in the past, present, and into the future.
With the advent of the vinyl record album in the early 20th century, people were able to record and distribute these songs, allowing them to transcend geography and rapidly influence musicians around the world. From anarchist folk songs to anthems of African liberation movements, Latin American ballads to the songs of the Civil Rights Movement here at home, the record album has played a key role in our understanding of how social movements communicate. More recent music subcultures such as punk and hip-hop are both political and politicizing in their own ways, and created worlds and communities which both moved with and beyond the music, becoming ends in and of themselves. In addition, pop music began taking on an active role in politics in the 1960s: songs such as “Free Nelson Mandela” by the Specials successfully galvanized the anti-apartheid movement, while more suspect attempts like “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid promoted charity not change. Either way, popular music articulated a complex vision of globalization long before it was a catch-word for the evolution of capitalism.
"This changes fuck all" by Submedia.tv
Posted June 16, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
Another great episode from the slaves at Submedia!
This week we take on the NGO led spectacle called the people’s climate march plus a look at Peru’s spectacular resistance against a copper mine, and the call from the east to disrupt oil extraction and infrastructure. On the music break, Ontario based hiphop group Flowtilla with Line 9. We wrap things up with an exclusive interview with Sea, an inhabitant of la ZAD, Europe’s largest post capitalist occupation.
New Impeach Freights/Graf 45
Posted June 9, 2015 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
"Support James Risen and Freedom of the Press."
JBbTC 217: This—is Grenada
Posted June 8, 2015 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
No in-depth analysis this week, but a peek at one really cool book, inside and out. Frances Kay's This—is Grenada is a beautiful self-published travel book from 1966. After skimming the book a couple times, I'm still unsure if Kay is from this small Caribbean island or is a long-time transplant. She definitely put an immense amount of love and care into this publication, writing and illustrating it, as well as compiling a classified directory in the back to help pay for the printing. The paperback book has a sewn binding and both the images and text are struck from plates, making it a really handsome object.
The book is nice guidebook with a home-spun feel, like Kay is taking us on a tour of her neighborhood, with all its quirks and unique facets. The illustrations that start each chapter are a highlight, riding the nice line between outsider imagery and simple drawings by someone with an amateur hand.
MayDay is Grey Day from SubMedia
Posted June 5, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
Here's an episode we missed posting to our blog.
In this sedition, a round up of global May Day riots, plus a re-cap of the Baltimore insurrection propelled by the police murder of Freddie Gray. To top it off, a double cheeseburger with bacon exclusive interview with HIlda Legadeño, mother of one of the missing Normalista students.
Big Brother, eh? from Submedia.tv
Posted June 2, 2015 by k_c_ in Film & Video | Comments (0)
This week we break Bill C-51, down Klanada’s sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers over its population. On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx, returns with “Fuck The Law.” We wrap things up with an interview with Antoine, a computer security ninja, about how we can protect ourselves from surveillance.
For links to encryption software, to comment on this show, to sign up to the stimulator email list, to get the show as a podcast or to find a playlist of the music we played just visit his effin' website stimulator.tv
New Impeach Freights/Graf 44
Posted June 2, 2015 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
"Stomp Out the Trans-Pacific Partnership."
JBbTC 216: A Little Bit o' Lenin
Posted June 1, 2015 by jmacphee in Judging Books by Their Covers | Comments (0)
First off, we've been hard at work on a brand new Justseeds website, which will vastly transform the experience of both the posting and reading of blog entries like these. That's been taking a lot of my time, which has made it harder to keep up with these book cover posts. I'm hoping to get back onto a more regular schedule once the new site launches in a month or two. Now back to our regularly scheduled program:
I've never been a huge Vladimir Ilyich enthusiast, and even less so of his contemporary fan base. Whether of the newspaper selling or Žižek-ian variety, most seem to oscillate between boring and annoying. Yet some how I have still ended up collecting a Lil' Lenin Library all my own, without any conscious effort. I was doing some cleaning, and found almost two dozen books with his pointy chin beard featured prominently on the covers. He's definitely a major trope of Left book publishing, so why not do a post about these covers?
I must admit, he looks good in Arabic. The bright red field of the cover is punctured by his name in long, precise script. His portrait—rendered in block print, or at least illustrated to look like it—is strong, his gaze looking leftward, off the cover and towards the content of the volume (Arabic reads right to left, so the covers open on the opposite side of English books). It's great propaganda, and intended as such. Although in Arabic, the book was produced by Progress Publishers, and printed in Moscow (in 1970).
The Vaquita Vanishes
Posted May 31, 2015 by justseeds in Today's Extinct Animal | Comments (0)
It's way too early to call the Vaquita extinct, but the world's smallest cetacean (the group which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises) is hanging on by the slenderest of threads. A recent article in Mongabay (perhaps the single best site for environmental news on the internet, outside the excellent Earth First! newswire) highlights the plight of the tiny stub-nosed swimmer- which, if it does pass away into the void of evolutionary time, will have done so almost entirely accidentally. People don't eat vaquitas, they don't hunt them down because they eat too many fish (unlike what's happening to cormorants in the Columbia River) and they don't process them into industrial products. The vaquita are being wiped out almost exclusively by being caught in gill-nets set to catch the totoaba, a gigantic croaker found only in the Gulf of California, whose swim-bladders fetch astronomically high prices in some Asian markets, where they are believed to have medicinal properties. This is another unfortunate example of the damage that aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine's focus on animal products are doing to the world's wildlife- from bear bile, to tiger penises, to rhinoceros horn, to totoabas; big, rare, slow-breeding species are being annihilated at breakneck speed to fuel a status-driven industry of palliative care. Much of this trade is controlled by large criminal organizations. I wrote before about the totoaba here- and although the Mexican government has just issued a total gill-net ban in the upper reaches of the Gulf, it's doubtful whether the enforcement necessary to stop the perilous decline of the vaquita will emerge. I really want to make prints about these creatures, but I want to make celebratory prints, not eulogies. Fingers crossed.
(Image credit: Omar Vidal)
New Impeach Freights/Graf 43
Posted May 26, 2015 by jmacphee in Street Art & Graffiti | Comments (0)
"Frack 'Quakes."
if a song could be freedom… 7″ Pre-Sale
Posted May 22, 2015 by jmacphee in Justseeds Member Projects | Comments (0)
Interference Archive is preparing for its next exhibition, if a song could be freedom . . . Organized Sounds of Resistance. As an accompaniment to the exhibition and catalog, we will also be pressing a limited edition 7” vinyl record in collaboration with Textual Records. As a friend of the Interference Archive, you can help us press this record by pre-ordering a limited edition 7” and catalog!
We have a pre-sale page up on our website HERE.
