Exist Otherwise
This is so, so good. Exist Otherwise — A Journal of Cancelled Confessions.
(It should be noted that I am the editor of Exist Otherwise.)
A free bi-monthly literary and art journal has launched, and it’s fascinating. The title of this journal is taken from Claude Cahun, a French gender-bending writer, artist, and activist in the first half of the last century. Her work was personal, political, and centered on identity and opposition to cultural conformity. She was part of the surrealist movement, performed acts of symbolic cultural protest, and was imprisoned for her work in the French Resistance.
Cahun was largely a self-portraitist. She used personas and created tableaus, confessions, scripts, collages, montages, and sculptures that challenged cultural norms and expectations, in particular regarding gender and art. Her work included many surrealistic references, influences, and imagery.
Cahun’s most well-known book, Disavowals, is hard to categorize…
It appears autobiographical and, indeed, is disarming in the directness of some of its personal descriptions. At the same time, the text calls into question concepts of fixed gender identity and self-knowledge, and is not beholden to any notion of truthfulness … it eschews conventional narrative and realism in favour of aphorism and episodic interludes, and perhaps should be better seen as a series of ‘poem-essays and essay-poems,’ … The book also has a strong visual aspect, with each section introduced by a photomontage by Cahun, typically with self-portraits showing her in various guises … the richly layered text and photomontages create a humorous but also fragmented and disorienting vision of the narrator.
Jennifer Mundy, in the Introduction to Disavowals
Submissions are open for the first 13 days of the following months: October, December, February, April, June, and August.
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From their website, this is what they’re looking for:
Identity
We are interested in works about identity, the self, and the personal. How do we, as unique individuals, navigate a world that doesn’t necessarily conform to us? What does it mean to be an individual in a society?
How many are you? Are you a single person with a single identity, or do you have the capacity to embody multiple personas? How do you present yourself to the world? To your friends? Co-workers? Lovers? Are you even you?
Gender
We are curious about gender. What is it? How can we move away from the restrictions inherent in a gender duality? How important is our gender to our sense of self? Is gender fixed, fluid, or subject to change? Why is gender important? Is it?
Trauma & Recovery
What’s your trauma? The question isn’t facetious or ironic. No one here gets out unharmed. Whether as a child or an adult, whether slight or grievous, all of us have been harmed. How has that shaped you? In particular, how has that shaped your sense of self?
What obstacles or challenges have you overcome? What obstacles stand in your way? How has society pushed you down, and how have you gotten back up? Have you gotten back up? If not, what do you seek or need to be whole?
Creative Expression
Why write? Why take photographs? Where does the artistic impulse come from? Does art have a purpose beyond its existence? Is it self-expression? If not, then what is it?
Intuition & Dreams
What are they? Where do they come from? Are these two phenomena related? Do they inform or influence you or your work? Are they integral to your survival as a human being?
The premier issue is available online and as a free downloadable PDF.
The writing is a mix of poetry, creative non-fiction, prose, hybrid, and even a very interesting theatrical script consisting of only stage directions. There are also a few black and white photographs.
