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A woman standing against a wall holds a skateboard with a blue-gray design. They have long, dark brown hair that is styled in two braids. They wear a wide-brimmed beige hat, a floral crop top, a white laced cardigan, and a deep purple mid-length skirt.
A cutout of a woman riding on a skateboard with their back turned to the camera. They have long, dark brown hair in two braids and wear a white wide-brimmed hat with black trimming, a long-sleeved pink top, an orchid pink mid-length skirt, and white sneakers. A cutout of a woman mid-air on a skateboard. They have long, dark brown hair in two braids and wear a white wide-brimmed hat with black trimming, a purple shirt with a floral print, a blue mid-length skirt, and black sneakers. A cutout of a woman sitting on a skateboard and looking at the camera. They have long, dark brown hair with two braids and wear a white wide-brimmed hat, a mauve pink shirt, a white, long-sleeved lace cardigan, an orchid pink mid-length skirt, and black sneakers.
The words “To Gather Together” capitalized in black against a lilac purple background, with a black box sliding from left to right and highlighting the “To” in light yellow.

Chime Zine is about the fight for global gender equality. This issue of the zine looks at our core tenet through the lens of performance. We use the term performance broadly, enabling us to ask as many questions as possible. For example, what is the difference between an authentic performance or something performative? Can meaning be found through the layering of actions with predetermined intention? Does the dichotomy between performer and audience create division or a space ripe for change? Can performance be a tool used to advance global gender equality? Change may start with a chime but can it also happen when a performance asks us To Gather Together? ADAM ELI

imilla
skate
A woman is mid-air on a skateboard outside with palm trees in the background. They have long, dark brown hair that is styled in two braids. They wear a white wide-brimmed hat with black trimming, a short-sleeved purple shirt with a floral print, a blue mid-length skirt, and black sneakers. A group of eight women pose for the camera in the outdoors while holding skateboards and wearing colorful blouses and mid-length skirts in varying shades of green, blue, pink, purple, and red. All have long, dark brown hair styled in one to two braids, and all wear white wide-brimmed white hats with black trimming except for the woman in the bottom-left. Lush greenery is out of focus in the background. A group of eight women stand against a beige textured wall outside, looking toward the top-right, away from the camera. They wear colorful blouses and mid-length skirts in varying shades of blue, green, pink, purple, and red, and all wear white wide-brimmed hats with black trimming except for two on the right. All are holding skateboards stood up on the ground, with wheels facing the camera. A group of seven women ride on their skateboards at varying distances toward an orange sunset through a neighborhood of red and orange-painted homes. They wear sneakers, colorful blouses, and mid-length skirts in varying shades of blue, green, purple, pink, and red, and all but one wear white wide-brimmed hats with black trimming.

Adrenaline, culture, sisterhood, and empowerment: these are just a few words that represent us, a group of young women who want to make a change. ImillaSkate is a collective of women who decided to live life to the fullest, express freedom and empower others.

ImillaSkate was created in 2019 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, by a group of women who got together to skateboard.

uterus
man
lu yang

Lu Yang is an artist whose 3D animated works bridge the scientific and the technological with the spiritual and philosophical, creating new visions of Chinese corporeality. Shanghai-born and Tokyo-based, Yang's 2013 work, Uterus Man, conjures up a proposed “Superman” with the powers of the uterine reproductive organ, employing the aesthetics of video game design to propose a gamified transhumanist subject. Raising more questions than it answers, Uterus Man is an amalgamation of Yang's interests in biomedicine, gaming, and Eastern philosophy.

What does the fight for gender equality look like in the virtual universe? What does performance look like in the virtual universe?

I think we're already living in a digitized, virtual world, so there's no need to be bound by the ways of the material one, but it seems people still project their material worldviews onto the virtual one anyway, so the virtual and material worlds end up being not that different after all. If class, gender, race, nationality—all these concepts of binary dichotomies and juxtapositions from this world—are just moved into the virtual one, that would be so uninteresting. My personal ideal for a virtual world is one that's completely free of such concepts and rules. It's not bound by the concepts of the real world, and therefore there isn't a need to fight for gender equality.

j o s h u a   s e r a f i n

Joshua Serafin is a multidisciplinary artist and performer. Below they speak to CHIME about their newest work and how performance can be used to create change and advance global gender equality

Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice?

Hi, my name is Joshua Serafin. And I am a Filipino Brussels-based multimedia artist, who focuses on dance, performance, and choreography. The main focus of my work is performance that is situated in the theater and the main theme of my practice is embodiment.

I use my body as a canvas to talk about current social, political, cultural phenomena. My work deals with questions of identity, transmigration, queer politics, representation, state of being, and ways of inhibiting the body.

I'm currently developing a cosmology of work, which I call Cosmological Gangbang, which seeks to create new forms of rituals and embodiment in relation to queer ecologies. I'm very much interested in the duality between the physical form and its representation.

on performance
julia bullock
Julia Bullock looks at the camera with a neutral expression. She has curly, dark brown Afro hair and wears a black long sleeve top with detailing and buttons and large stud earrings. The background is a canvas of abstract paint lines and shapes in varying light colors including pink, white, blue, green, and gray.

At a time when the label “performative” is equated with being disingenuous, it is interesting to contemplate how the element of performance can be used to advance global gender equality. Especially for someone like me, who performs for a living.

Over the years, I've reflected a lot on the actions of artists I most revere.

our
hair

The Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran began in response to a compulsory hijab law, requiring women to cover their hair and bodies in public. Women in Iran have been fighting against this law for decades, arguing that it violates their fundamental human rights and restricts their freedom.

The death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, while in police custody for allegedly not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards, sparked months-long protests. These protests have been met with violent government crackdowns, with protesters facing arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death.

An illustration by Moroccan graphic artist Zainab Fasiki, featuring a blue-colored person on the left, looking to the right, with a red lip and long black hair parted down the middle that flows outside of the frame. The background is an orange-red gradient. A white text box appears in the bottom right with the text, “Patriarchy hates women hair and think they can controll it just like Iran…” capitalized in black. An illustration by Moroccan graphic artist Zainab Fasiki, featuring a blue-colored hand in the bottom left holding scissors. The background is an orange-red gradient. A white text box appears in the center-right with the text, “If cutting hair is a way to say that showing hair or not must be a choice… Imagine…” capitalized in black. An illustration by Moroccan graphic artist Zainab Fasiki, featuring a blue-colored person on the right, looking to the left, with a red lip and long black hair parted down the middle. They wear a blue strapless top. They are in the process of cutting their hair, with scissors in their left hand and a strand of hair in their right hand. The background is an orange-gray gradient. A white text box appears in the bottom left with the text, “Cutting hair became a symbol of revolution in Iran…” capitalized in black. An illustration by Moroccan graphic artist Zainab Fasiki, featuring a blue-colored person in the center and leaning on the ground, looking straight ahead. They have a red lip and short black hair parted down the middle. Their expression is sad. The background is an orange-purple gradient. A large white text box appears in the top left with the text, “I hope we won’t need to cut our breasts and uterus in order for patriarchy to end…” capitalized in black.
intimate resistance
muna
mussie
Five images of Eritrean artist Muna Mussie appear in rotation. In the first four images, Muna wears a black, mock neck jumpsuit with a snakeskin pattern and long sleeves, their hair is curled upward in the front, and they stand against a canvas painted black with lines of pink tape around their head for emphasis. The five images rotate from: Muna looking at the camera, closing their eyes, opening their eyes, closing their eyes while facing the camera, and their fist with pink tape around for emphasis.

Muna Mussie is an Eritrean performance-based artist based in Bologna, Italy. Her performances Oasi, Oblio, and Milite Ignoto (Unknown Soldier) ignite probing questions regarding the history of colonialism and the creative possibilities of performing the private in the public. Below, Mussie speaks with CHIME about these most recent works and her thoughts on performing the Self, finding channels to discuss colonialism through the story of her grandmother, and more.

So, in relation to performance, what is the impact it has on your experience?

I'll start with my experience as a performer and what my journey has been. So consequently I'm speaking from my own experience. Performance and all art forms and artistic mediums inevitably have personal and social value. I think that the personal will inevitably affect the social. When I talk about the personal I am talking about the concept of politics in terms of more of an intimate resistance.

i am not a mother
alison leiby

I'm many things to many people. To some I'm a friend. To some I'm a coworker. To a few employees of a Fort Greene natural wine shop I'm an annoying regular always looking for something “fun.” But to many people I'm probably “the woman with the abortion show.” I am also not a mother.

I began the off-Broadway theater run of my solo comedy show, “Oh God, A Show About Abortion,” at the end of April 2022.

Alison Leiby smiles at the camera. They have long and wavy dark brown hair parted to the side. They wear a black shirt and round glasses. The background is animated with rotating light pink and yellow.