Atrophy: Cripping Rape Culture
Perzine (PDF), jes sasche, Jenna MacKay, Jordyn Taylor, Wy Joung Kou, funded by Laidlaw Foundation/Project Creative Users, 28 pgs, Free on creativeusers.net/zine
Past, present, and future exists both internally and externally in our bodies. The strength, resilience, and honesty that shoots out like sun beams, even amongst the black pages of Atrophy, is blinding. Darkness becomes illuminated in a way that shouts to you, ‘Hey! Look at my story and examine my trauma, but find my power and be gracious of my transparency. Grow just like I have’. Heavy stones and ancient bones, as the authors address in the introduction, sets the zine with a humbled tone. Atrophy is beautifully composed of black and white images and texts, layered and arranged in a pleasing way. Each of the four pieces within the zine are different from one another which helps guide the reader to the acknowledgment of a new voice and the accompanied vulnerability. From topics of being medicated and having sex, acknowledging the unseen divider between love, sex, and consent, to non-consented body modification and surgeries, to viewing yourself as a sexual assault statistic, and a harrowing experience of losing even the basic right of eating, Atrophy reminds you through and through of what privileges you carry with you and which you’ve lost. I believe this zine holds the power to be all at once triggering and healing. It’s a special gift to have four people keep leaden stones in their pockets, and have now granted public access into these weighty, private aspects of their lives. Sometimes it’s the darkest parts of us that shine the brightest. (KK Taylor)