Zines
A personal zine written & designed entirely by me:
Ancestral Assemblage (Absence)
Ancestral Assemblage (Absence) is interested in the roots of void. Tracing roots that lead back to creative Rebecca L. Gross’s ancestral lineage, this project explores what it means to hail from a People who have built their existence on storytelling, while cohabitating with loud silences. Gross references their experience taking L.A. As Assemblage, a class facilitated by Professors Paul Harris and Damon Willick, and constructs a zine composed of fragments, debris, (w)holes, and selves. Gross bolsters their own ancestral absence with the great words of Georges Perec and Anne Michaels, two great thinkers who have written extensively about fragments and voids in the post-WWII Jewish diasporic experience.
Emotional Alegebra:
Design & art direction by Grace Novacek, featuring 15 creatives.
Our flash issue, Emotional Algebra, is here! This new online issue features 15 pieces of micro-poetry and -fiction in the tradition of Anais Nin.
Off Menu Press: For the full story of how Off Menu Press got its name, and how we solidified our mission of amplifying the voices of folks with canonically excluded genders, check out THIS STATEMENT on our Patreon. Off Menu Press was formerly known as All Female Menu, and is still operated under All Female Menu LLC.
A still from my zine, “Ancestral Assemblage: Diaspora as rhizome.” The zine reckons with violence my own family has been a part of committing, and the uncertainty of having a dead father who cannot tell me about this violence. I engage with what my own relationship to it should be.
Image description: With an eerie grin on his face, my father holds a gun with two hands above his head. His figure is tall, thick, and strong. He is in Israel. More specifically, he is likely, at this point in his time there, living on a Kibbutz in the northernmost part of the state, which borders Lebanon. He stands on grass and behind him is an outdoor seating area adorned with modern outdoor furniture. A multi-story building with large glass windows and doors frames the scene. A ghost of myself, overexposed and fading, is overlaid on his torso and face, my own grin obscuring his.
Art as activism:
Designed & art direction by Grace Novacek, featuring 11 BIPOC creatives.
Art as Activism responds to the following: We are in a moment of simultaneous mourning and celebration, of protest and potential. For some, this allows artistic energies to expand; but for others, it can feel challenging to keep creating when there is so much else to give attention to. While the page may not feel like a place to protest, we believe it is. In this moment of uprisings, how is activism in conversations with your artistic flow? How does justice appear in your work when it is noticeably absent in the world? How is your art an act of preservation, of abolition, of protest, of solace?The following pieces explore the relationship between art, activism, and protest. This political moment is asking us to reimagine our world, and we invited our submitters to do the same with their art. We asked, what have you been creating in the days, weeks, and months that have been defined by political protest.
Off Menu Press, Issue 2 (under All Female Menu name):
Theme: femme pain
Featuring work from Annie Dahl, Morgan Markowski, Laura Mishkin, Yvette Sierra-Vignau, Jeevika Verma, Natalie Grammer, Sam Ro, Grace Novacek, Siena Riley, and Tori Gesualdo.
Edited and curated by Rebecca Gross
Designed by Monica Niehaus
A photo taken while a recent Off Menu Press zine, “Lavender Menace” was being constructed.
Issue 1
Designed by Monica Niehaus
Issue 1 features the work of Raquela Bases, Ren Nguyen, Sandra Matthews, Devon Fleming, Avery Sabine, Ebony Watson, Pander Sera, Mira Petrillo, Hailey Robinson, and Cameron Eldridge.
Off Menu Press, Issue 3
Theme: femme utopia
Featuring work from Elana Hubert, Amanda Koenigsberg, Haylee Millikan, Phoebe Mol, Bisu Mela, August Filleul, Olivia DeBonis, Maya McGrory, Helena Pantsis, and Vanessa Klaus.
Edited and curated by Rebecca Gross
Designed by Monica Niehaus