Insider: Girls Like Us
Through personal stories, essays and anarchic design, Girls Like Us mixes politics with pleasure to map out the new routes towards a feminist, post-gender future.
With the eighth issue just out, we caught up with founder and editor Jessica Gysel to learn about the process of making the issue – including writing a manifesto, hosting a three-day launch party, and funny yoga fails…
In the making of this issue I…
Explored
Collectives, collaborations, friendships and support structures. We have a soft spot for people doing things with other people: loving, working, organising, living. These strategies for surviving together form an underlying thread throughout all our issues. This time we wanted to look more closely at one way of naming these friendly constellations – family.
Listened to
A lot to Massive Attack – their first couple of albums.
Was inspired by
Our first sort of manifesto, which Sara Kaaman, our graphic designer, wrote as a proposal for the Brno Design Biennale (which we’re part of and opens this month). We loved it so much that we decided to use it as our motto; we printed postcards from it and use it as an ad – it’s really helped us in defining what the magazine stands for.
Read
Mostly material that came in for the issue. Reading, editing, proofreading. At the end of the day, there’s not much headspace left for serious reading. I’m quite addicted to Wordfeud, so that was my ‘reading moment’.
Argued about
The cover. It’s an archive image and it represents this issue and the theme very well. I was more in favour of a new picture, which was a single-person portrait, but the collective vote must win. In retrospect, I’m very happy with how it turned out.
Learned
That no matter how well you plan, the deadline is always too early, the text too long, the visuals too raw…
Met
We didn’t actually meet that many people while making the magazine, but for the launch we organised a big event that took place over three days. It kicked off with a party on Friday, a DJ and batik workshop on Saturday, and brunch and film screening on Sunday. So many people came, and we met some really inspiring individuals and collectives. It’s so nice to see the magazine come to life and interact with the audience.
Was excited about
Visiting artists-turned-farmers Orla Barry and Els Dietvorst on their sheep farm in Wexford, Ireland to interview them for this issue. It was really an amazing experience, which also brought some reality to the utopian idea of ‘starting a farm somewhere and start all over’. You need to read the article, really.
Couldn’t stop laughing at
These yoga fails. I practise yoga a lot, but somehow I don’t manage a lot of these poses. It made me happy to see I’m not the only one.
And everyone should buy a copy because
Chris Kraus says so (and I quote: “What I like most about the family issue is the range, not just of modes of family and kinship, but in people’s attitudes about themselves – some very content, some seem forcedly content, some admit to being a bit lonely – it just seems like such an accurate depiction of how people see and present themselves now”).
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