INSIGHT: Hunger

Issue 49 | www.fokus.org

Atiba T. Edwards

Founder & Chief Curator Atiba is an engineer focused on making and connecting creative people, nodes, networks and moments.

Shani Cohen Curator

Shani is a Brooklyn based writer who believes in uniting our diverse communities through art and the power of words.

Jozi Zwerdling Curator

Jozi is an artist enabler, educator and organizer who loves the INSIGHT project as a means of re-imagining, linking and documenting selves, stories and worlds.

INSIGHT Magazine showcases and archives emerging contemporary artists from all art disciplines. FOKUS produces this magazine to provide insight into people who are creating art, traditional and non-traditional, in their own way.

HUNGER Contributors

Cover by Paul Lewin (www.paullewinart.com) Cheryl Lee Bowers • Kevin Coval • Monique “Muse” Dodd • Lakiesha Herman • Paul Lewin • Marly Spieser-Schneider • Christine Stoddard • Jozi Zwerdling

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Questions, comments and contributions can be sent to insightsubmit@gmail.com.

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Copyright © 2016. INSIGHT (ISSN 2164-7771) is a publication of FOKUS, Inc. All rights reserved on entire contents. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

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Kevin Coval patronage Paul Lewin

Parables Marly Spieser-Schneider Muse Lakiesha Herman Struggle Meals Jozi Zwerdling Hers: A Hunger Christine Stoddard Dreaming of a Feminist Feast Jozi Zwerdling Sun Star Jozi Zwerdling (dis)embodiment Monique “Muse” Dodd Remnants Cheryl Lee Bowers In Search Of Cherly Lee Bowers Miracle

Photography

Visual Art

Creative Writing

Articles

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patronage

February 29, 1992

Kevin Coval If I can’t help my sons then they can kiss my ass! I make no apologies to anyone.

There are many men in this room whose fathers helped them, & they went on to become fine public servants. If a man can’t put his arms around his sons & help them, then what’s the world coming to?- richard m. daley, January 2, 1977 a city of stupid sons. boys being boys. stealing their father’s new white chevy blazer & driving an hour an a half around the U of the lake to their summer home in michigan to get turnt & let off catholic boy steam & drink, pull out a shotgun, a baseball bat & beat an indiana boy’s brain to blood clot. no daley will serve time. time is for other sons with out birthright. without a firm that will receive millions in sewage contracts, actual shit money filling up bank accounts or the internet contract for o’hare or the tur global investment firm where daley & his boy sell off Chicago’s public goods to the highest bidder. bitter men & their dumb sons. daley’s daddy made his son the state’s attorney despite failing the bar twice & never trying a case. when evidence of police torture graced his desk in the early 80s it was ignored. his ignorance made him mayor.

what father wouldn’t want to stand for their son. make a call or tell a judge over lunch at the Chicago club to take it easy, let the family handle it. patronage is a Chicago word for family for taking care of one’s own & what father would disagree or wouldn’t want to spare their son or set them up to succeed or desire a better life for them easier than their own

Kevin Coval is the author of seven books including The BreakBeat Poets & This is Modern Art, co-written with Idris Goodwin. A People’s History of Chicago was just released this in Spring of 2017 on Haymarket Books. www.kevincoval.com 4 | www.fokus.org

Going To The Market

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Paul Lewin

Paul Lewin lives and works out of Oakland, California. The artist mostly paints acrylic paintings inspired by African and Afro-Caribbean culture and folklore. Paul’s focus is on the relationship between humans, the spirit world, and the ancestors. Also, he tries to incorporate his own brand of afrofuturism into the work.

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The Offering 6 | www.fokus.org

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Sacred 8 | www.fokus.org

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Nanny and the Pumpkin Seeds

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Divine Kingdom 10 | www.fokus.org

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The Muse

Marly Spieser-Schneider

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Marly Spieser-Schneider is a movement artist who primarily creates and shares her work in Vermont, Michigan, and New York. She is always up to something, somewhere‌ @marlysier | www.marlysdanceworks.com www.fokus.org |

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Struggle Meals: Biggie Lakiesha Herman

Lakiesha Herman was born in England to an English mother and a Jamaican father. She immigrated to the States at the age of five and spent her years in Florida, Oregon and now Brooklyn, NY. Drawing has always been a love of hers. She loves expression in art form as well as reciting her work. www.nomayo.com 14 | www.fokus.org

Kanye

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Struggle Meals is a project that came about from simply admiring food in lyrics. I love

when artists rap about food, I don’t know why. But when I took a closer listen, I realized there’s a real story in the meals they’re talking about.

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John+Legend

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Hers: A Hunger

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Jozi Zwerdling

“It was just enough encouragement, but not too much.

Oh, the body, that tattler, revealed itself in all its honesty.

Hers, a hunger.”

- Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo I am greedy for your love I am on my fire escape craning my neck to find you.

Every woman who passes Could be youBut is not.

Until you are at my door with a dozen pink garden roses Looking at me with apology eyes.

I am crying because I have to share you.

You are so abundant.

I wish I trusted That meant there was enough for all of us.

You have done nothing wrong.

I am glutton, Insatiable Gut. You are solid and fruit and juicy, You drip down my chin so good.

I don’t want you to forget How I feel when I am devouring you.

When I walk through Brooklyn at dusk The sky is royal blue, The streetlight makes the green of the leaves see through, Luminescent.

I almost know what it is to be air, Or water, Instead of all this fire, Burning up this earth.

Jozi is an artist enabler, educator and organizer who loves the INSIGHT project as a means of re-imagining, linking and documenting selves, stories and worlds. www.fokus.org |

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Dreaming of a Feminist Feast

by Christine Stoddard

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Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American artist and the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine. Her visuals have appeared in the New York Transit Museum, the Ground Zero Hurricane Katrina Museum, the Poe Museum, and beyond. www.WorldOfChristineStoddard.com

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Sun Star

Jozi Zwerdling

“Parts of me can die little by little. What will I be when there is nothing left but hunger and feeding?” – Octavia Butler, Wild Seed “They may not look like it But Starfish are voracious keystone predators.

The Ocra Sea Star slowly devours it’s victims by climbing on top of it and placing it’s open stomach around its prey.

Starfish are essential in maintaining balance to an ecosystem, prohibiting an organism to overrun an area.”

-National Geographic Did you know?

Starfish can lose a limb, And if even part of their central disc is intact, They will re-grow it?

Did you know?

A sun star can grow up to 40 arms?

There is a folk tale, Where the man, (or woman, if my mother is telling it), Hurls each washed up starfish into sea.

A passerby asks “Why? There are too many.”

The person replies “But I can save this one.”

Launches an Asteroidea back to sea, We all return to where we came from In the end.

We don’t lose everything, Then.

Did you know?

I have a seastar inked on my hip.

The skin breaks down in a procedural way.

Ageing is strange, Time is not linear.

Skin also regenerates.

This is the practice of perpetually unclenching my fists at night, Warring with my face-

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My insides on my outsidesA starfish thirsty to be thrown back to sea.

My Love: Sea Star devouring prey, If I consume you with my belly Will I keep you (from) overrunning me?

If I have 40 arms, And can hold you with each of them, What then?

(dis)embodiment

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Jozi Zwerdling

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Remnants

Monique “Muse” Dodd

This image is a still from a short film I wrote and directed called Remnants.

The film comes out of a longing to belong, as an African born in America. There is a disconnect from our heritage and our current state. In Remnants, the subject tries desperately to hold on to what she knows or has collected about Africa, but because she has not been properly educated she can’t fully access her birthright.

The hunger persists and the bloodlust must be repaid.

Here is a short synopsis of the film: A young African American woman locks herself in the bathroom running from her life. She mutilates herself to connect with the spirits of her African Ancestors and ground herself in blood ritual and tradition. But without knowledge of self and her history she unwittingly calls down a spirit with which she is ill-equipped to deal with.

Muse is a filmmaker and photographer who received her Bachelors of Arts in Film Production from Howard University. Her focus lies in both the shared and diverse experiences of people within the African Diaspora. www.musefilms.co 24 | www.fokus.org

In Search Of

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Cheryl Lee Bowers

Hunger is the driving force behind attaining things that seem unattainable, out of reach, at your fingertips. Hunger can consume the mind, body and soul in a trice- mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Hunger can cloud one’s judgment and clarify it simultaneously; paving the way for endless new beginnings. The outcome being positive or negative-all and all constructive. Hunger can open doors and windows that were once shut. In turn, hunger can close doors and windows that were once accessible. Hunger can move mountains and make miracles. Hunger can make one look high and search low for love, success, sustenance, acceptance, repentance, and currency. Hunger, the gift and a curse!!

Cheryl Lee Bowers is a Photographer/Artist originally from East New York now based in the Ocean Hill part of Brooklyn, New York. Cheryl’s images have the visual drama and artistry of many moods of photography. Her style is unmistakable.

She has the talent for rare captures of amazing light with a sense of the epic, majestic and the bold. www.24-mp.com www.fokus.org |

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Miracle

Cheryl Lee Bowers

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Thank You for reading INSIGHT: HUNGER We hope you enjoyed the work shared with you.

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