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Last week Katie announced her new book, Cat Party!, an anthology of stories and art by more than 50 contributors, and Joe made a cat-shaped record with a cat-themed song he and collaborator Chris Baldys wrote for the occasion. Tattooed Mom’s, aka the best bar in the city, was kind enough to host us for a launch party, and a whole bunch of people came out, including several contributors to the book. What a fun time. Thank you for supporting us, everybody!
Consonant Collective is very excited to announce its newest collaboration, On the Record Poetry, a series of poetry chapbooks and accompanying records curated by Katie & Joe. We will put out 6 record/chapbook releases this year, with the full roster to be announced very soon. The projects are deeply rooted in collaboration between the collective and the authors.
Dark Nature, a horror story told through poetry from Joe Carlough, is the first release in the series.
What would you do if you found yourself alone in the woods and everything seemed just a bit...off?
That's the story of Dark Nature. The story-in-poems follows a person who's warned not to go into the woods, but their curiosity proves too much, finding themself watched, stalked, and eventually driven mad by the woods themselves, more-so through their own carelessness than that of any of the myriad odd occurrences and creatures they encounter.
The beautifully-rendered chapbook, presented with the poems imposed on full-color, high-resolution plant images, was designed by Joe and printed by Fireball Printing right here in Philadelphia. Accompanying the chapbook is a leaf-shaped 7" record with a 5 minute reading of the full chapbook by the author, recorded on vintage analogue technology to match the dreamy, lost nature of the poetry. The B-Side of the record features a reinterpretation of the reading by Icelandic sound artist and composter Íris Thorarins.
The audio of the poetry was recorded directly to cassette using a late 1960's Sony F-98 Reel to Reel Cardioid Microphone with a mid-1980's Panasonic RQ-2709D tape player. The cassettes were then digitized and the audio lightly mastered. The records were embossed using a sapphire stylus on polycarbonate using a 1937 Presto 6DSP record lathe.
The record and chapbook can be purchased here.
We had a blast at the Princeton Zine Fest. Thank you to the organizers at the beautiful Princeton Public Library for organizing it! We met lots of lovely humans, shared our work, and acquired a stack of interesting zines for our collection.
So many good zines!
Yesterday we had the pleasure of leading a zine workshop at McCabe Library at Swarthmore College. Several enthusiastic students came out to work on zines using typewriters, collage, and other methods. In honor of Fair Use Week, we talked about the importance of fair use of intellectual property in creating works of parody and critique, both of which are crucial components of this kind of punk rock self-publishing. Thank you, Swarthmore College and librarians Abbie Weil and Maria Aghazarian for inviting and hosting us!
We’re excited to share that we’ve just begun working with Ifeta Mešić and SirahHaris, aka Cousins by Choice, two talented young artists who we met last summer at the Fanzineist Vienna Art Book & Zine Fair. The Cousins are spending the next three months in NYC and working on a graphic memoir about their experiences there. We’ll act as their mentors as they create their book. We’re thrilled to be working with them and can’t wait to see what they’ll create.
Here’s a bit more about them and their project, from the Cousins themselves:
The international duo “Cousins by Choice” are in NEW YORK CITY! These Bosnian creatives first met in Rotterdam during their Illustration studies at the Willem De Kooning Academie and have since then founded their collective “Cousins by Choice.” Just like cousins, their work is related and similar but not the same. Their family of art is an energetic culmination of fun and moving images, poems and zines! However just like family, it can be chaotic and wild, but at the end of the day you return to them for comfort. Now that you know the cousins, you might ask yourself “what are they doing in New York City?” They are here to work on an exciting publication all about the city and the surrounding area! In this scrapbook-esque publication, they will feature out-of-the-box articles, inspiring artist interviews and personal accounts of their time in NEW YORK CITY that take the form of comics, sketches, and more!
Ifeta Mešić
Ifeta Mešić
SirahHaris
Ifeta Mešić
SirahHaris
SirahHaris
We have shared a selection of zines and books from our collection that focus on gender, queer sexuality, feminism, and LGBTQIA+ identity for the upcoming exhibition beLONGING. The show features the work of artists Carmel Dor, THECOLORG, Abbey Muza, and Meg Wolensky and has been organized by InLiquid, an arts organization that has supported visual artists in Philadelphia since 1999. Included in the show is a reading room installation where visitors can sit and read the zines on loan. We are proud and happy to share these priceless publications in this way.
As InLiquid writes, beLONGING is part of (re)FOCUS, “a collaboration among over 25 of Philadelphia’s visual arts institutions to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of FOCUS, a milestone exhibition of American women artists, held in Philadelphia in 1974. In revisiting FOCUS, (re)FOCUS includes a new generation of diverse artists working around themes of gender, sexuality, and intersectional identity.
“Moore College of Art and Design Galleries is the lead institution with participation from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, African American Museum of Philadelphia, Woodmere Art Museum, University of the Arts Galleries, Tyler School of Art, University of Pennsylvania, Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia Mural Arts and others.”
January 5, 2024 – February 24, 2024
Wednesdays - Saturdays, 12-6 PM
InLiquid Gallery
1400 North American Street, Gallery 108
Philadelphia, PA 19122