Engender Zine Fall 2020

engender fall 2020

a production of the

Visit us in the RMC women.rice.edu facebook.com/RiceWRC

contents “Caution” Ashley Tsang “La Corona” Elizabeth Fessler “Caution” Ashley Tsang Submissions from evening of embroidery event “Zap” Ell

“Superimposed” Ell

Submissions from states of mind event

engender x Moody Center for the Arts “Confusion” Ashley Tsang “Fridays are for Gathering” Jenny Li-Wang “digital thank you” Jenny Li-Wang

letter from the editors dear friends, thank you for reading our fall edition of engender ! as we welcome

the new year, marking almost a year of quaratine, we hope the theme isolation/connection reflects the occasionally strange, occasionally surprising ways we’ve lost & found community during the pandemic. what a season it’s been. from anti-Chinese violence wrought by fearmongering & xenophobia, to the resilience of democracy in the face of a tumultuous election, it sometimes feels as if we’ve lived many years in the span of several months. amidst this chaotic time, the team at engender was excited to host several in-person events this semester, including our evening of

embroidery & our collaboration with Moody Center for the Arts in the states of mind exhibit walk-through & discussion. thanks to everyone who came by! it was wonderful to see you.

thank you to our contributors, for sharing your words & your heart. thank you, dear reader, for witnessing these stories. regardless of who you are, we hope you can learn through reading. love, the engender 2020-2021 editors-in-chief (alyce, bria, & jenny)

“La Corona” Elizabeth Fessler

“Caution” Ashley Tsang

evening of embroidery 21 October 2020 thanks to everyone who participated in our first in-person engender event this semester during RWRC week!!

“Lavender”

“Marigolds”

“Zap” Ell

“Superimposed” Ell

states of mind: art & american democracy 20 November 2020

an engender x Moody Center for the Arts event thanks to Moody Center for the Arts & our participants for coming to our event! we at engender were happy for the opportunity to host a self-lead walk-through of the States of Mind exhibit & discussion with Ylinka Barotto & Julia Fisher, who helped curate & display this exhibit together.

the following submissions are reflections from our event attendees.

a description of the exhibit, courtesy of the Moody Center website: Reflecting on some of the most pressing topics facing American democracy, States of Mind: Art and American Democracy is timed to coincide with the 2020 presidential election in order to encourage dialogue around current social and political issues. Many of the works on view examine the status of our country’s founding principles of freedom and equality, while others engage with questions of voting access, gun control, and immigration policies — three issues that are common throughout the United States and of particular concern to Texas. States of Mind does not attempt to cover the myriad complexities of a democratic government but rather to invite viewers to consider timely yet recurrent questions around these themes. Each artist in States of Mind offers a discrete and potent account of how political issues directly affect our daily lives. By illuminating challenging, often entrenched policies, they seek to foster discourse and propose social change.

This exhibition is organized by Ylinka Barotto, Associate Curator, Moody Center for the Arts along with Julia Fisher, Rice University Student Assistant and Julia Kidd, Rice University Student Assistant and Moody Center for the Arts Head Gallery Guide.

This exhibition is made possible by the Moody Center for the Arts Founder’s Circle with additional support from the Elizabeth Lee Moody Excellence Fund for the Arts.

States of Mind Reflection Katherine Cohen

photo courtesy of the Moody Center for the Arts

I step through a glass door into the second room of the exhibit and am inundated with noise. Two videos are playing in the center of the gallery, talking over one another. The first thing that caught my eyes, a flag unfurling from the wall, piling into a blue and white heap on the floor. Next, three large police officer uniforms hanging on the wall at an intimidating height, looming over the gallery. An aura of power and distance saturated within those woven black uniforms.

However, the first art piece that drew me closer and demanded my now undivided attention were three solitary pieces of clothing on racks near the entrance. Their sharp, velvety texture contrasted directly with the light walls behind. I stepped closer to inspect the craftsmanship of the first dress. In an exhibit curated with pieces that provoke thought and challenge ideas, there was something welcoming about these

beautiful objects. There was something unassuming. Perhaps I was drawn to them as a respite from the beautiful but abrasive imagery of the other pieces in the gallery.

Gold and silver thread were delicately woven across the pieces in an impressive feat of embroidery. There were small blue shards scattered across the dress, crystals perhaps. The first dress was shapely, a short flattering gown that could serve as an evening gown. The shards caught the light beautifully. I tried to picture the dress on myself - it looked nice.

The second was a ceremonial looking garb, perhaps something that a formal guard might wear over a uniform. Over a neat black color and a fitted trim, the same beautiful embroidery spilled across the fabric.

The same light blue shards were held against the fabric. I noticed now that the pieces were uneven, an asymmetry that contrasted with the delicate balance of the embroidery around them.

Considering the themes of the exhibit, confronting the dark underside of American society, the inequalities and the violence at the core of our nation, I was curious how these beautiful garments fit in with the narrative. My curiosity guided me to check the placard for an explanation.

The garments were made by Teresa Margolles. With a slow sense of dawning horror, I realized what those little blue shards were.

Shard of broken glass. All from broken windows caused by cartel gun violence in which innocent people had been murdered. Each garment contained glass shards from different locations where atrocities had occurred.

States of Mind Reflection Anonymous

The art consists of a rifle on a stand. It invites us to peer through the barrel of a rifle & pull the trigger. You see a family on a picnic in the crosshairs. You pull the trigger—BANG. Everyone is dead. I can only stand pulling the trigger & hearing the recorded shooting sound twice before I need to step away. My friend bends over, peers through the eyepiece. I click the trigger for her— BANG, BANG, BANG. Dead families, children, couples.

We don’t reach the end of the reel, but the curator tells us that the art piece consists not only of the rifle, but also a hidden camera, located above us. It sends a live feed, so if you keep shooting the rifle, you finally see yourself in the crosshairs.

It’s a provocative piece of art for sure. Art as resistance to gun violence, with a clear thesis resounding. You inflict an act of violence & eventually, inevitably, implicate yourself.

photos courtesy of the Moody Center for the Arts

photo courtesy of the Moody Center for the Arts

Fridays are for Gathering

“Confusion” Ashley Tsang

Jenny Li-Wang Downtown Amman glitters with heat and noise and color. Jordanian and Palestinian dresses, bright with embroidery, hang alongsite checkered kufiyas. Vendors push perfume samples at our hands as we walk by. Some smile at us, all teeth. We hear ni hao and konnichiwa. We link arms tightly and chatter and feign oblivious smiles like any other Asian tourist.

During our seven weeks studying abroad, my friend Sabrina (Chinese American, female) and I (Chinese American, female) enjoy walking around the city.

Amman is a city assembled on a series of hills called jabal (the Arabic word for mountain). From some vantage points, the square limestone buildings seem to blanket the earth in every direction—pale and pocked and

block-shaped like cubes of tofu. It must be sometime in mid-February when I hear the word first corona thrown in my direction. I know it’s directed at me because the man is looking straight at me when he says it. I turn and see that he’s smiling. The blatancy of the insult surprises me so much that I just keep walking. It isn’t until a few steps later that the lack of irony hits me and my stomach drops to my shoes.

As the global COVID-19 situation escalates, the frequency of incidents like this rise. The majority of my program friends are white, and when we walk around areas saturated with expats, I might go one night with only a couple incidents. For a while, Sabrina and I laugh about learning the Arabic words for Screw you! or I am not a virus! I joke that the next time someone calls me corona, I will cough and sneeze aggressively in their direction.

When the next time inevitably comes, however—when I hear it shouted through the windows of passing cars, or hollered from across the street, or mumbled as I walk by—the shock still stuns me for a brief moment. By the time I turn around, the man—and it is almost always a young man—has already gone or turned away. I curse them, but mostly I curse myself for not hardening my resolve enough. No matter how much you brace yourself for impact, the words somehow still manage to disappoint and hurt you anyway.

The Arabic word for Friday is al-juma, with a root word that means to gather or to unite. On most Fridays, my host family drives me to their grandma’s house for dinner. The first day, she greets me with one warm kiss on the cheek. On my fourth Friday, their grandma kisses me three times and laughs at my surprised reaction. Two days later, on Sunday, my program is abruptly sent home.

My host mom gifts me a mug with my face on it, a box of pistachio sweets, and a little gift bag filled with masks and disposable gloves. For the first time, with PPE doing a poor job concealing my Chinese face, I feel uneasy about being in an airport. A study abroad friend whose family is Moroccan jokes that I might experience what it’s like to navigate security spaces as an Arab or Muslim person. This is meant to be funny, but I can’t seem to laugh.

I spend my fourteen days in quarantine moping. Through campus emails and updates from friends, I hear about the situation at my university. I call anxious friends. Their concerns range from fear of returning to their parents’ house to distress over the fates of research cell lines they’ve been carefully maintaining for generations. I send sympathetic messages to the seniors I’m close to. Most left for spring break in good spirits, not expecting that their next visit to campus would be spent hastily packing boxes and moving out for good.

As classes move online and weeks continue to pass by, the surrealness settles into defeated acceptance. Millions of college students around America mourn all at once for the loss of their semesters. With everyone at home and seeking distraction, the frequency of depressing memes in my Facebook feed has increased exponentially. Grief somehow makes us both listless and restless at the same time. Pass/fail class policies give students some space to adjust and reorient themselves academically, but this comes at the cost of inadvertently causing severe drops in motivation for many. I and many other juniors mourn cancelled summer programs and fellowships and internships—results of a hard season of recruiting ending in vain. My senior friend is laid off from the job he hasn’t even started yet. Others mourn returning home, for trivial as well as serious reasons. and still others mourn family and friends they’ve lost to COVID-19.

In light of everything, I consider myself very mildly inconvenienced by the pandemic. The frustration I felt when I left Jordan quickly dissipates when my family picks me up at the airport. Their concerned voices are muffled behind handsewn masks, but they are healthy and nag at me over the usual things. Over the next few months, as I catch up with friends through texts and calls, almost everyone expresses a similar sentiment. At least my family is okay. At least I found somewhere else to stay. At least we’re not graduating this year—poor seniors. We mourn all our losses, then add at least with a tinge of tired guilt, as if asking for anything more than what we already have would be indulgent.

In a recent announcement from May 5, our university president states he remains “cautiously optimistic” about reopening Rice in the fall. The rest of President Leebron’s email details steps the university is taking to facilitate

a safe opening—dual online and in-person class options, a shortened semester, maintaining social distancing on campus, and strict regulation of social activities.

These days, whenever I wonder what my senior year will look like, my mind circles back to that phrase—“cautiously optimistic.” The imagery makes me smile. I imagine optimism at home, practicing social distancing and taking up new indoor hobbies. Her friends hope and positivity must be prudent as well, allowing themselves to dream up big plans for the near future while also looking left-right-left before crossing the street.

Soon, my oxymoronic remote study abroad classes will end. Haphazardly arranged summer plans will begin. As parts of the U.S. slowly reopen, I desperately pray that our leaders would not be blinded by unwarranted hope or stubborn ambition, but remain wise and sensible as we adapt to the inevitable changes coming ahead.

So I will look forward to fall, cautiously optimistic. In the next few years, I will look for opportunities to return to Jordan as well—to experience its life and culture when the world is no longer cowering under pandemic and virus.

In the meantime, I’ve been having fun looking for new ways to connect. I take hikes with friends living in other cities, laughing over the phone until it’s nighttime for both of us. My dad and I find a volleyball and hit it around together for the first time in years. My sister finds time amidst her busy first-year PhD schedule to play online mahjong with her friends.

Last Friday night, I addressed my college small group for the first time as its new leader. After discussing 1 Peter 1 over video call, we played tag on Google Sheets—chasing one another’s colored boxes around and around.

The sound of laughter sounds tinny and lags slightly over Zoom. Despite this, I can’t wait until next Friday.

“digital gratitude” Jenny Li-Wang

engender

fall 2020

editors-in-chief alyce simien Bria Weisz Jenny Li-Wang

contributors Ashley Tsang

Elizabeth Fessler Ell Katherine Cohen Anonymous Jenny Li-Wang

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engender !

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Cover art by Ashley Tsang

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