Airline to Heaven, Part I began as an animation installation and suite of works on paper. Annie Heckman created writings in tandem with this exhibition, forming a series of short texts exploring afterlife ideologies, dead pets, and strategies for facing the end of life. These are collected here together with drawings and animation stills from that series. Matthew Dal Santo and Terri L. Russ were both invited to contribute to the book as a sort of salon anthology; rather than writing essays on the work, they created their own primary texts to run parallel to the themes explored in the existing art and texts. The result is a powerful collaboration, serving as a pilot project for the press in establishing dynamic interactions among artists and writers.

Airline to Heaven, Part I

Annie Heckman

Matthew Dal Santo

Terri L. Russ

Arts & Photography

StepSister Press, LLC

Bitchin' Bodies began as a series of individual and small group interviews with young college women in the United States. Over a seven-year research period, Terri used these conversations to create a compelling analysis of body shape discourse and the way it is experienced, shared, and reframed by young women in conversation. While most of us are aware of eating disorders, Terri's approach encompasses the everyday experiences of being dissatisfied with personal appearance, and the impact of these preoccupations on our interactions, goals, and participation in society. Divided into sections exploring personal, interpersonal, and cultural dimensions of body dissatisfaction, this book serves at once as a comfort for personal reading, a resource for young women and those working with them on these issues, and a compelling introduction to topics in feminism and communication studies. Karin Lekan's images complicate this text by creating a surreal world in which strangely empowered women move with a sense of reflection in relation to their bodies, which sometimes literally come apart in pieces. Her images appear throughout the book, creating an uncanny interpretation of the world Terri describes.

Bitchin' Bodies: young women talk about body dissatisfaction

Politics & Social Sciences

Women's Studies

Submerged: Tales from the Basin is an anthology of literature, memoir, and art created by more than thirty women to benefit those who survived Hurricane Katrina. The title refers to a fear many of us had as young children, of having our heads submerged under water while our mothers washed our hair. The stories, essays, poems, and art of Submerged are an exploration of each contributor's relationship with her hair, in most cases emotional, often humorous, and consistently generated from youth. An African American writer discusses having her hair ironed straight in the 1960s, with her mother trying hard to keep her from looking like a Black Panther. A Southern writer laments her childhood braid lying in a box in perpetual youth while she, herself, ages. A young woman watches her aging grandmother go bald. A lonely widow rediscovers intimacy from the remote touch of her wax technician. A New Orleans performance group talks about Hurricane Katrina, gender stereotypes, and hair as stage craft. Artist Lorien Jordan has created a series of drawings in response to these essays, memoirs, and poems. A percentage of the book's proceeds will help support charities based in New Orleans that work with ongoing relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Submerged: Tales from the Basin

Literature & Fiction

Lauren Gonzalez

United States

Camille Grafer describes the journey she and her mother took after Mama Rose was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Recalling the life of her mother-a widow raising her only child in Chicago in the 1950s-Camille tells the story of her own transitions as a caregiver. Her loving tribute is filled with strategies for how to face this illness with generosity and humor.

Sunshine Rose: What My Mother Taught Me about Aging, Alzheimer’s, and the End of Life (Words from Teachers)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Grafer, Camille

Mental Health

Museums Are Dead.They fell victim to torch-bearing mobs, looters, and the vociferous contempt of political and religious groups. But perhaps also through insular pedagogies, inequitable practices, and a lack of representation or transparency, museums contributed to their own demise.In our current social climate, it has become critical that we, as students, teachers, employees and participants of the museum, reflect on our roles within the white marble walls of the establishments we hold dear. The articles in the following pages represent the curiosity, research, perspective and tenacity required to lay the old museum to rest in order to allow the new museum to thrive.Together we imagine a future for these institutions untethered from the colonial ties that bind them today. We address the difficult histories of the museum whose past been marred with racism, sexism, classism, and questionable ethics. In this issue, museum practitioners tackle topics such as repatriation and inequitable labor practices through analysis of media and artifacts. Together we imagine the museum not as a lost cause, but as an opportunity to grow, to learn and to change. Enjoy reading.Long Live Museums.

Fwd Museums: Death to Museums

Quinn, Therese

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