Some of my favourite zines and chapbooks of the past few years have been produced by HAG (link to http://hagcollective.tumblr.com/). HAG is Jasmin Risk and Clara Lou’s post post feminist curatorial performance and poetics project. HAG is “problematizing subjectivity” to “a body that does not end at skin” and so many things in between. They are theory but they are theory in glitter and the body.
Being in New Zealand means that I haven’t experienced any of their IRL performances other than through their documentation online and in their publications, but I have all of the zines and chapbooks I could get my hands on – performances turned to materials – both performances in a wider art/theatre sense and in an everyday life sense. I love how they turn the ephemeral into something more permanent whilst also highlighting that ephemerality.
They have been kind enough to include work of mine in their zines and their work has in turn been a big influence on me and my writing! This kind of exchange shows that the communities around zines – whether physical or online – are so important.
Back to HAG, though – this year they have released two new publications – A Green Room is a book you thought you were borrowing which in face you owned (a cross-genre project by Clara Lou on Anne Carson, Anne Sexton and Lauren Berlant) and <<er>> (photographic documentation, panic and relief by Jasmin Risk).
Other work of theirs that I would also recommend checking out if you haven’t already is Jasmin Risk’s There is too much zine series (http://thereistoomuch.bigcartel.com/#_=_) and Clara Lou’s play What Has Been Given Cannot Be Stomached (https://vimeo.com/129686108).
The zine series which included ‘The Cyborg Gaze’ and ‘Ectoplasms’ has featured artists and writers such as Caitlin Hazell, Liv Thurley of The Coven, Hannah Lefeuvre, Ana Cecilia Alvarez, Christen Clifford, Dia Felix, Kayla Morse and Samantha Conlon.
If you are interested in feminism, queer theory, poetry, performance and art you will find a lot to love about HAG.