“The production of a normative human body is a vital means of social control. In an interview with Stefan Szczelkun, artist Alexa Wright explains how her work experiments with the defended boundaries of the human/self, and the affects unleashed by their transgression.”

“…too often the competitive forces of the art market lead artists to use facile shock tactics, which only serve to inoculate us rather than enable us to think. Alexa Wright’s work avoids sensationalism and takes a more serious and useful approach to this material.”

Click here for the full article/interview.

Aperture’s new issue (subscribe here) features a new project by Los Angeles photographer Kelly Poe. Poe started corresponding with individuals imprisoned for their environmental activism, many convicted in the post-9-11 terror hysteria that equated acts of property destruction with the taking of human life.  Poe asked these individuals to pinpoint places in the real world that inspire them. After painstaking research and travel to remote locations and repeated consultation with the prisoners, she used her 8×10 camera to document those locations and share the results.

While they appear similar to great landscape photography from the 20th century, the addition of facsimile letters from the prisoners recasts these images in a decidedly 21st century light.

From Boing Boing:

“It’s not surprising that the editors of Fortune rejected cartoonist Chris Ware’s fantastic cover for the May 2010 issue. It contains too much truth for comfort. Also, it hearkens back to the golden age of Fortune as an exemplar of beautifully designed and illustrated magazines, and so would have invited unkind comments about the magazine’s typical current level of design aesthetics.”

From Indie Pulp, reporting on the C2E2 [Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo] panel that Ware participated in:

“[Ware] showed a cover he did for Fortune magazine which was supposed to be on the Fortune 500 issue. He accepted the job because it would be like doing the 1929 issue of the magazine, and he filled the image with tons of satirical imagery, like the U.S. Treasuring being raided by Wall Street, China dumping money into the ocean, homes being flooded, homes being foreclosed, and CEOs dancing a jig while society devolves into chaos. The cover, needless to say, was rejected.”

“Click image for big version so you can see the jokes.”

[Cross-posted to The Data Stream. Thanks to CDN in Napa for the tip.]

Read about the birth, intent, and success of our friends at The Groundswell Collective in the new issue of Sheepless Magazine here.

And while your at it, check out Sheepless itself.

“Sheepless.org is a community-supported magazine site, provoking, celebrating, and providing critical exposure for a new breed of entrepreneurs forging vocations that serve the common good, whether environmental, social, educational, cultural, or community-driven.”

The current issue of  American Theatre showcases a host of theater projects organized around some aspect of food. Repast, Present, Future By Mark Blankenship cover how four theatre projects are using food (or its absence) to make lasting community connection and Fusion Fare by Nicole Estvanik Taylor presents nine perspectives on unexpected intersections of food and art.

Last fall our comrades at Groundswell called for submissions for their new print-based publication and we were lucky enough to get the first issue hand-delivered by Dave Morgan, editor, when he passed through Provisions last week.

The handy tome introduces Crisis Folklore, a view of the world today from an imaginary future.  It includes contributions from Gavin Grindon (the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination), Susan Sakash (RadKidCare), John Hulsey and collaborators (City Life/Vida Urbana), Karl Fitzgerald (Real Estate 4 Ransom), the Team Colors Collective, and Chris Kennedy (basekamp/The Institute for Applied Aesthetics).

You can get a copy from these great bookstores:

• Red Emma’s (Baltimore, MD)
• Bluestockings (NYC, NY)
• Lucy Parsons Center (Boston, MA)
• or contact Groundswell directly

A couple weeks ago I posted about the sentencing of the two American journalists detained in North Korea. Unsurprisingly, among several recent arrests in Iran was Canadian Newsweek reporter and talented  filmmaker Maziar Bahari, who had been covering Iran for the magazine for over a decade. According to Newsweek, Bahari was sleeping in his Tehran apartment when several unidentified security officers seized him, along with his computer and several videotapes. Apparently, he is one of a growing number of 20+ bloggers and journalists that have been arrested in the past week. Of course, the magazine has called upon the Iranian government to release him immediately, but at this that seems unlikely. Colleague Peter Svatek says the situation speaks to the overall climate of the region right now. “He’s super aware of the dangers. It just goes to show how terribly volatile the situation is in Iran right now.”

Again, I can’t express how sad it is to think that many people risk their freedom everyday in the name of journalism and the necessity of reliable information. No one should have to make that choice.

   
Don’t miss the current issue of The Progressive, a wonderfully unassuming magazine that happens to be celebrating its 100th year as a touchstone for radical politics. On April 30, if you happen to be in The Progressive’s home town of Madison, Wisconsin, be sure to join their Anniversary Celebration.

Their excellent website includes a trove of past articles, videos and some amazing audio interviews conducted by editor Matthew Rothschild. Listen to poet Jimmy Santiago Baca explain how he started writing poetry while serving time and how his fellow inmates (including the head of the Aryan Bortherhood) would pay him in cigarettes to write poems for their loved ones.  Other interviews include David Korten on undermining the roots of dominant culture; Cynthia Enloe on cultural masculinity in foreign policy and many more.