The Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine, a funding proposal

Hello Friends,

As you may already know, the Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine is a long-term, multifaceted collaboration with a group of young women college students in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I first met these young women when I was offered a residency in their dormitory, where I lived for two months during the winter of 2007-2008. (To read more about this work, scroll down to the right-hand section of this blog, Camb(l)o(g)dia, Condensed.) During my time there I initiated a close relationship with all 32 residents, and together we created two seperate bodies of self-publishing work and initiated an international dialogue about human rights and young women in developing nations. I intend to return in December to continue this work during a time of tremendous need.

To the right, a ChipIn meter has been documenting accumulating contributions to this project, and I'm thrilled to announce that we've hit the 1% mark even before I've publicly announced the campaign. SO MANY THANKS--for this and many other actions--go to contributors Cinnamon Cooper, Veronica Arreola, Natalie Warden, and Christine Cupaiuolo.

There's a new interview about the project with the fabulous Mike and Andy at Outside the Loop radio, or you can read the full project proposal at Democracy Guest List. And donate to the right!

Upcoming Lecture Tour

I'll be speaking on Cambodian media, girl culture, and my zine work in Phnom Penh:

September 28, Southern Illinois University—Carbondale
4 p.m., Global Media Research Center

September 30, University at Illinois Champaign-Urbana
7 p.m., Women's Resources Center

October 11: Media Matters with Bob McChesney
1 pm, ON THE RADIO or ON YOUR MP3 PLAYER

Hope to see you out at one of these events!

Holle Cambodia at ThreeWalls

For just a couple more weeks, my exhibition Holle Cambodia is up at ThreeWalls gallery in Chicago. I'll be giving my curator's talk on March 27th at 6 p.m., so come on by!

New Asian Human Rights Commission State-of-Cambodia Report

The Asian Human Rights Commission released a report on International Human Rights Day with the concerning subtitle, "A Turning Point for the Worse?" Download and read it here. It's a chilling read.

On International Human Rights Day

[A cross-post from Democracy Guest List]

Sam Bo is the Phnom Penh celebratory elephant. Here he is celebrating International Human Rights Day.

On the 59th anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this day last year, I was in a massive parade and street party in Phnom Penh attended by fellow human rights enthusiasts like chaipei players, NGO employees, and elephants. I had arrived in Cambodia a week beforehand and really just barely shaken my jetlag and didn't quite grasp the significance of the day. Until 32 young Cambodian women explained it to me. And now, in glancing over these 30 articles, it's frustrating how few of these rights my girls at the Harpswell Foundation are guaranteed.

But of course, these rights are intended to be implemented on an international level, and as Yes! Magazine's downloadable PDF poster makes clear, we've still got quite a ways to go in this country.

However. The Harpswell students and I developed our own, localized call for rights, based on a document called Chbap Srei in Khmer, which translates to Girl Law or Rule in English. Over a two-week period, we collaborated a revision of the traditional text that circumscribes proper roles for women in Cambodian culture. Our version calls for basic human rights, gender equity, the eradication of corruption, and funding for cultural production. (You can read more about it there to the left. I'm selling a few for cheap here with endpapers I'm not satisfied with but they're going fast; there are also these to check out. Final release slated for February 2009!)

Among those New Girl Laws that seem particularly apt today, in Chicago, on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as written and agreed to by 32 young Cambodian women:

• Women should hold positions of power in high society and in politics.


• Women and men should be given free health care and preventative health education.


• Corruption laws should be established, enforced, and respected.


• Funding should be established in support of cultural production.


• Laws as written should be enforced by everyone, including lawmakers.


• Be patient.

PW Comics Week on the SEA Drawin' and Writin' Boom

Southeast Asia recently has risen in prominence in the U.S. comics scene, with Malaysian artist Lat seeing his seminal cartoons released stateside by First Second and the Filipino Leinil Yu drawing Marvel's summer blockbuster Secret Invasion. There's perhaps no better time, then, for an anthology of comics from the region.

That was the mindset of Sonny Liew, who was born in Malaysia before attending Cambridge University. He keeps busy illustrating for publishers such as Vertigo and Slave Labor Graphics and contributing to Flight, but in his extra time has pulled together artists from Southeast Asia to contribute to Liquid City, the new anthology published by Image Comics.

read on: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6618769.html?nid=2789

Parlor Reading

I did a reading last week in Chicago at the Parlor, a monthly reading series at the Green Lantern. If you want, you can listen top it here, plus all sorts of questions I wasn't expecting! That I still had to answer! Bummer for me! But it's a pretty good reading I think!