URGENCY READER 2: MUTUAL AID PUBLISHING DURING CRISIS (2020)
Loose assemblage of 129 risograph prints, folded sheets, and zines
278 pages + cover
Rubber bands and plastic bag
8.5 in. x 11 in. assembled/packaged
Print edition of 25 hand-numbered copies
[sold out]
Urgency Reader 2: Mutual Aid Publishing During Crisis began with a 10-day open call that was announced on March 18, 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The call for work was motivated by two desires:
1—to collectively document some of the extraordinary conditions, dynamics, and emotions being experienced while in quarantine, and 2—to provide some relief to artists and writers impacted by the crisis, in both creative and monetary forms. How might publishing as artistic practice embody communal care?
More than 100 artists and writers submitted work, mostly generated during quarantine. Contributors were compensated a total of $2,295, using funds from a 2020 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts grant, plus an anonymous donation. 65 of the 110 contributors donated their share of the compensation back to the pool, resulting in 45 contributors each receiving a stipend of $51.
An edition of 25 copies of Urgency Reader 2 was printed and assembled at Queer.Archive.Work during the first week of April 2020. A high-quality scan of the printed edition is available for free download (see below). Physical copies of the reader have been permanently placed in our library for future visitors, once it’s safe to re-open to the public. All proceeds were used to fund QAW artists’ residencies.
Contributors and contents
AK/OK—(Kate Jarboe + M. Wright)—All together now! Neighbourhood dispatches from Montréal, March 2020
Adam Chuong—New Horizons
Alessandro Ghio, Nicholas McGuigan,
Lisa Powell—A Queer Accounting Manifesto
Alexis Erickson—Beautiful Faces
Andrew W. Smith—Collapse
Anna Gardner—no time
anobelisk—Bippy goes to Hell
Anonymous—To the RISD Community
Anonymous—A Call for Complaint: for Plague Speech, for Sick Speech.
Anonymous Nurses—Pattern for a face mask
Ant M Lobo—Untitled Digital Collage
Anthony Warnick—We Will Not Be The Final Generation
Anzia Anderson—calendar
arthur katrina—NOTES FROM WEEK ONE : THE RELUCTANT HERMIT, THE INTIMATE APOCALYPSE, VIRUS DAZE INTUITIVE MIXTAPES VOL. 1–5
Athena Zeros—day break bird
Azulae Northa—Looking in
Bailey Steele—Meet Me Inside
Be Oakley—Collective Self Isolations: Thoughts on Radical Softness as a Boundless Form of Resistance during a Pandemic
bean drake—Fair winds and Following Seas
brook vann—ataraxic blue
Cade Diehm & Edward Anthony,
The New Design Congress—Welcome to the Artificial Wilderness
Caiti Borruso—On being laid off
Carlos Kong—Faden/Thread
Carmen Ribaudo—Primaveral Drawings
Caroline Sorin—canwepanicnow.gif
chariot wish—GOD BLESS YOU IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE, GODFAG, EVIL BITCH PARADISE
Chr. Winther—04.44.44
Christian Ortiz—Human Movement Slowdown
Christopher Cole
claire m.—prophecies now!
Connor Frew—WHAT WAS MIES THINKING (HEALTHCARE FOR ALL)
corinne ang—walking distance
D Rosen—Swallow your puppy–
Danny Aldred—Nullius in Verba
Dylan Tescher W.—Princess Dress
Edwige Charlot—kay lòt moun / home of others
Elaine Lopez—How empathy, inclusion, and community in my classroom have prepared me to deal with the disruptions of Covid-19
Elie Andersen—What We Ate
Elisabeth Nicula—March 27, 2020
ellen zahniser—THE SPLINTERED STRUCTURES OF HISTORY TOWER ABOVE AS I WALK ALONG
Emma Kemp with May Hoover, Angel Barris, Brittany Carter, Adriene Im—Correspondences (Otis College)
Erik Freer—The Inheritance
everett epstein—are you guys up for some reggae tonight?
GOVERNANCE (Rebecca Uliasz and Quran Karriem)—Sunsetting the Species
Gregory Ghilani Fawkes—Fire shower
Greta Huang Skagerlind—Poem re: striding
Gu—Elsewhere
Hannah Azar Strauss—Sacred Heart Sinks
Hugo Gallo—Hugo’s Quarantime Dispatch
Jake Dugard—S•O•S
Jennifer Tobias—Untitled
Joe Potts—Unfolding Inquiries: notes from the Southland Institute on some considerations as online education moves into the foreground
John-Francis Quiñonez—I Know, in Some Ways, I Must be Answering for All the Times I Begged for More Time in my Kitchen (Poem)
Joshua Duttweiler—Aren’t We All, Just Keep Swimming, We Are, We Ell Hand Sanitizer
Katherine Ye—24 hours in Pittsburgh
kathy cho & rachel hrbek—it’s ok
Kelsey Sucena & Nessa Grasing—The Leech Manifesto
Kirslyn Schell-Smith—Per My Last E-Mail
Kit—futurity
Kitt Peacock—First Night Fever Dream for Pauvi Tem
L S—Claustrophobic haze of blossoms
Laith A. Ayogu—Boiled, hole
laura lamb brown-lavoie—“Thing I used to do with my tongue”—“Well I guess we are in this now” (that one is three parts)
Lauren Stroh—DAY FOUR
Lermworm—Quarantine Thoughts (What happens next?)
Lisa J. Maione—One After Another; Future Dream
Logan K. Young—Six Uneasy Pieces
Louise Drulhe—Quarantine - Day 10
Louna Bou Ghanem—I’m re-experiencing feelings
Luis Carlos López—Quarantine sucks and I take delight *
Mae Eskenazi—Becoming Expansive
Maggie Siebert—Things I Believe About Ed Sheeran
Marisa Fulper Estrada—Static Freefall
Miriam Navarro Prieto—When This All Ends
Molly Soda
Nafis M. White—Social Distance Musings in the Rona Era
nicole killian—toto caelo
Nina Muccia—at home at last forever
Noa Mori—In the Wake of the Crisis We Must // A Thin Layer of Sanitizer & Fear
Norah Gunn—“Untitled”
Olive B. Godlee—Weeks After the Last Party
Oliver/Olivier—Being In Flux
Pablo Lerma—The Impossibility of Looking Outside and/or How To Think About Care
Paul Maheke—The Year I Stopped Making Art
Pickle Partisans—Phase-Shift
Rachel Hrbek—The Tower
Rebecca Gates—Untitled 2020327
Rebecca Wilkinson
Rena Rong—Musings from Elmwood
robynn.xyz—OS/error
Ruben Castillo—Stills from a video performance, Fluff
Ryan Skrabalak—American Water Round I
Rylie LAWVER—a post frontier proposal
Sabrena & Rose Ghostly—Absurdities Amidst the Virus
Sal Randolph—Urgent Sonnets
sam m-h—A Note--for Digital Dwellers/Dwelling
Sara Inacio—little armored one
Shou Jie Eng—‘Her shelves contained the world’
Sigrid Pauen—Very Late Capitalism
Sophia Le Fraga—When You Talk
Sophie Seita and Naomi Woo—Manifesto of The Hildegard von Bingen Society for Gardening Companions
T. Deutch—We Will Keep Going
Taehee Whang—Diary Log-3.25.2020
tess brown-lavoie—resist austerity and do not touch face
The Making Public Collective (corresponding author Miriam Rasch)—Introduction to Here & Now? Explorations in Urgent Publishing
Tiara Roxanne—Digital Attunement (an introduction)
Tiffany Patterson—Works from the quarantine–March 2020
wermo—derangements
Wil van Iersel—Headlines
Zoë Pulley—ME, MYSELF & I / A WALK
Edited and published by Paul Soulellis
DOWNLOAD URGENCY READER 2
Lower-res scan of printed edition (203MB PDF)
High-res scan of printed edition (1.73GB PDF)
Free download at Printed Matter
A special edition of excerpts from Urgency Reader 2 was produced for the Brooklyn Art Book Fair in June 2020, benefiting The Marsha P. Johnson Institute and Queer.Archive.Work artist residencies. Edition: 75
