Some Photos From Europe

Makeshift Reclamation Europe Tour Dates

November 4-7 Uppsala Pride, Sweden (various)
November 10 Hamburg, Germany at Liz 9:30pm

November 13 Berlin, Germany at Schwarzer Kanal 8:30 pm (film night starts at 5:00 pm)
November 16 Bonn, Germany at Oscar-Romero-Haus 7:00pm
November 19 Vienna, Austria at aRtmosphere 7:00 pm

more photos from the northeast

A few photos from the tour...more soon!

Our Fall Tour Dates!

We are excited to announce a Northeast Fall Tour! We will be presenting Makeshift Reclamation at Wesleyan University in Connecticut 10/13/10, Barnard in New York 10/14/10, Bluestockings in New York 10/16/10, Hampshire College and Food For Thought Books in Amherst 10/18/10 and Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia 10/21/10. We are currently booking shows in the region and if you would like to bring Makeshift Reclamation to a space near you, please email us.

Beautiful Detroit

One of many community gardens...

Hanging Gardens - Detroit

Tuesday June 15 San Francisco recLAmation

recLAmation will be shown in its entirety at this World Premiere event. The National Queer Arts Festival and Queer Cultural Center present the screening with live narration at The Garage. Tickets Here.

an even newer trailer for recLAmation!

makeshift reclamation at AMC and USSF 2010

Our tour is headed to Detroit!
More details on our schedule coming soon.

US Social Forum

new trailer for recLAmation!

still from Double Take

Jess and I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the new feminist video zine Double Take at Evergreen. We are excited to check out how the project unfolds (unlike our jeans which appear to be well cuffed).

Cascade P-Patch

... which is adjacent to Cascade People's Center and down the block
from three collective housing buildings where we were treated to a
yummy lunch and good conversation about co-ops and cohousing. --Jess

Bradners Park Gardens, Seattle

Seattle!

We're adoring Seattle, where our hosts are growing chard in the living
room, every neighborhood we pass through is blossom-full, the air is
clean and crisp, the light is lovely and oft-shifting (glinting so
magnificently off magnolias and green, bouncing off white blooms) ...
we've met delightful people at shows and homes and restaurants, and
are thrilled by the proliferation of lush community gardens.

This afternoon we performed at University of Washington, thanks to the
great organizing work of Kai Kohlsdorf, who read from his essay
"Resexing Trans" from make/shift no. 6. We were also joined by Laura
"Piece" Kelley, whose poetry selections resonated beautifully with
Hilary's film, both speaking of seedballs and outsider vision enacted
with joy and fun fashion.

And it was great to see recLAmation, Mattilda's and Gina's All That
Sheltering Emptiness, and Lex Gumbs's To You Who Understand in a
theater space with a big screen and deep darkness.

Tomorrow, we're gonna check out a city park that's home to dozens of
permaculture projects, the Cascade People's Center and P-Patch, and a
local farmers' market before our evening show at Left Bank Books. --Jess

The Road (Portland)

I am drinking yerbe mate in the quiet grey morning of Olympia's light rainfall. We arrived yesterday from Portland. Portland. The In Other Wordsbookstore show was a really fun first event for our tour. The audience was lively and receptive. I was a little self conscious about my film project presenting alternative possibilities for Los Angeles that already seemed common place in that city, but the larger question of why more places aren't modeling that city planning still loomed. The Q & A after the show sparked a fun dialog about capitalism and trailed off into philosophical musings around the concept of liberty in times of a prison state.

Breakfast the next day was a gorgeous array of vegan wonders, and a warm mix of folks cooking in the kitchen. I learned some cooking tips and relished the kindness at Timmy Straw's abode. Later we trekked over to Reed College for our second show in a very pretty chapel hall. Reed looked like a brochure or a film set for Dead Poet's Society. I learned from documenting the shows so far that one venue isn't looking different from the next if I want the performers larger than the size of a carrot stick. Posterity lacked the rich woods and carved ceiling. (The multimedia means there is a blank white screen behind the readers and poets when art isn't being projected.) In my downtime before the next show I'm going to make some color mattes to project on the screen. That might be an interesting way to break up the background.

After the show we ate some food at the Red and Black Cafe, a worker owned cooperative vegan joint with delicious offerings. Then our dinner conversation brought to light the fact that across the street there was a bar that offered vegan corn dog baskets with tater-tots. I saved up some room in my belly and we went for a second dinner. It was a nostalgic whirlwind. I hadn't had a vegan corn dog in many years, not since Sandeh and Rene made them at The Clinic in SF. The next morning we went to Blossoming Lotus on the way out of town. I mistakenly looked at the brunch menu and had my heart set on savory pancakes -- then when we got there learned brunch was just a weekend thing. Lunch was not disappointing, actually it was the opposite, and I had a hard time parting from the city without longing for more meal time.

We arrived in Olympia and journeyed around the town in the rain. The Last Words bookstore had a display of books that made it hard not to want to stop and read every last item. We went to Le Voyeur Cafe for a rad meal. The Pacific Northwest is really delightful on the food front, and that such wonderful meals are actually affordable on a tour budget. Today hiking, visiting a food co-op and checking out community gardens are the top items on our list (not to mention some rehearsal time). Tomorrow we are at the Olympia Public Library at 8pm.

The library made a poster for us!

Strolling through Olympia with an old friend and her darling daughter,
and we found this poster the library made. --Jess

In the Chapel at Reed

Hilary performing live narration of recLAmation in Eliot Hall Chapel
at Reed. --Jess

Makeshift Reclamation Launches at In Other Words, Portland

Timmy Straw and audience at In Other Words, Portland's feminist
bookstore.

On the road in less than two weeks!

I'm in the midst of drafting an essay I plan to read as part of "Makeshift Reclamation," and I'm getting increasingly excited about the works and visions that are going to travel together in this first leg of our tour. I'm thinking about collaboration and interdependence and the interconnectedness of the specific people and works and issues that will be part of these events as well as the huge yet diaphanous and shifting interconnectedness of, well, everything.

I can't wait to connect with the woods and the people of the Pacific Northwest. Soon!

Love,

Jess

Welcome

Thanks for stopping by the new website. Things are taking shape, and far from blank! We've got several pages decked out in all kinds of informative drag. Have a look around the place, and don't forget to mark your calenders if we are passing through your town.

This first post is a little prelude to welcome you to our new collaborative effort. More is definitely on the way as we prepare to hit the road to the Pacific Northwest.