I Live Here puts human face on oppression
Posted on: November 20, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
With the tag line “There are too many untold stories,” I Live Here brings to life those who blend into the crowds we see on the news every day.
I Live Here consists of four books packaged together in something like a quadruple record-album sleeve. Each of the books—which read like zines or graphic novels—focuses on an area where people have been displaced: Ingushetia, Russia, where many Chechens have fled the ongoing violence in their own republic; Burma, which many have left for Thailand because of military oppression; Malawi, where an estimated 20 percent of residents of the capital city, Lilongwe, are HIV–positive; and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where economic migrants toil in maquiladoras.
There’s a heavy dose of Canadian star power here, with actor Mia Kirshner and author J. B. MacKinnon supplying the editorial direction and much of the text, and Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons of Adbusters creating a visual style reminiscent of that magazine’s high-impact collage look. Ann-Marie MacDonald, Lynn Coady, Joe Sacco, and Julie Morstad also contribute.
Kirshner took on the project because “sometimes I think that the world is dying, melting, and forgetting.” Some of her journal entries, which form the backbone of each book, focus too much on her own personal history, while others succeed in bringing you to the four places she visited.
The collection can be confusing. The sleeve notes purport to tell you whether each piece is fiction or nonfiction but are often difficult to reconcile with the books. As well, there are some brutally violent images. But the reality is that violence is a key part of these stories.
One of the strongest pieces is “Twenty Poems for Claudia”. Lauren Kirshner, an author and Mia Kirshner’s sister, has created a narrative based on family photos, notes by friends, and missing-person posters related to one of the hundreds of murdered women of Ciudad Juárez. She reflects on the strangeness of her task: “Claudia, I’ve written your story five times, scrapped every one of them. I was trying to explain things that I had no way of knowing. Now I know what the problem was. I was thinking of myself instead of you. How I wanted things to make sense, to find logic in the fragments. Your story is not logical.”
I Live Here makes a strong attempt to bring to life the world’s oppressed in a way the news media cannot.
Source: straight.com
Kirshner writes about rough lives
Posted on: November 18, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
Mia Kirshner, most recently seen as Jenny on “The L Word,” is also an author, and I Live Here is not just another Hollywood starlet story.
It’s about her trips to four messy and malignant parts of the world — the Russian republic of Ingushetia; Burma; Juarez, Mexico; and Malawi — that have large disenfranchised populations. Kirshner tells the stories about the women and children in these places through journal entries, collages, photographs, paintings an more with the help of co-authors J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons.
The trips were made over a six-year period. Kirshner, 33, told the Los Angeles Times she wanted to do something that mattered after working on a show after Sept. 11, 2001, made her feel “pretty dead inside.” (She’s also been on “24,” and “Wolf Lake.”). She first organized a benefit for Afghan women, and then decided to focus on “people who are in war or displaced or living, basically, in an extremity.”
“I did this in the most foolish way,” she said recently. “I spent my savings on the book.
“But, you know, it’s worth it. And I also felt like I didn’t really want to ask for outside funding until I knew I was proud of the material.”
Source: kansascity.com
Mia Kirshner’s ‘I Live Here’: passionate
Posted on: November 16, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here, Interviews | 0 Comments
The cable star’s travelogue of global hotspots is elaborately designed and knottily layered
If you get annoyed when actors engage in activism, Mia Kirshner is right there with you. The 33-year-old actress — who played a stripper in the revered 1994 movie “Exotica” and has worked steadily since, most often in roles as a sexualized smarty-pants, like her character Jenny Schecter on “The L Word” — said recently, “I think some actors have exploited their philanthropic efforts to promote a film.”
Kirshner was saying such things because her new book, “I Live Here,” is unmistakably philanthropic. During the past six years, she traveled to four messy and malignant parts of the world — the Russian republic of Ingushetia; Burma; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; and Malawi -— that have large disenfranchised populations. “I Live Here,” is the product of those trips: Its four separate volumes, one for each region, tell stories about the women and children in these places through journal entries, collages, photographs, paintings, graphic novellas and images of found objects. Kirshner wrangled many collaborators; J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons are the co-authors, and there is a boatload of other contributors, including some of the subjects themselves.
The unvarnished truth
Posted on: November 10, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
Actress Mia Kirshner’s book gives voice to the oppressed and displaced.
Mia Kirshner wants you to meet some people, people who have been forced from their homes by war or economic necessity, people living in the darkest corners of the world.
And she wants you to care about them the way she does.
The L Word actor and sometimes Vancouver resident has been to places most of us wouldn’t dare to go: a Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia, brothels in Thailand filled with girls escaping genocide, war zones where children carry automatic weapons.
Refugee life explored in “I Live Here”
Posted on: November 03, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
Much too often, the pain in the world goes overlooked; much too often, the hunger of people is unnoticed; much too often, human suffering is pushed to the wayside. As you open “I Live Here,” the quote “there are too many stories” resonates throughout the four books that are enclosed in the cover of this moving composition.
“I Live Here” by Mia Kirshner, J.B. MacKinnon Paul Shoebridge, and Michael Simmons is a moving documentary of the lives on refugees and people who have been displaced from their homes by wars or fear for their lives. The authors of the book had to travel to all corners of the globe: the war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico and AIDS in Malawi, telling the heart-wrenching stories of these people.
Dear Diary
Posted on: October 28, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here, Interviews, Media Alerts | 0 Comments
Most journals are about our own little problems. But Toronto actress Mia Kirshner travelled to four desperate parts of the world to bring back the tales of the most vulnerable people, Gayle MacDonald writes
For the past seven years, Toronto actress Mia Kirshner has been obsessed with self-financing and publishing her debut book, I Live Here, a harrowing tribute to the overlooked victims of war, corrupt governments and crippling disease.
“I worked on the book – all the time,” says Kirshner, a gorgeous, dark-haired slip of a thing who started acting as an extra in low-budget television and saw her career take off after nailing roles in Love & Human Remains and Exotica.
“I drove my friends and family insane because they said it’s all I talked about. I know it’s true, and I’m sure, very annoying to be around. But it literally has been an odyssey, an obsession for me. Because once I saw how many people have sacrificed so much … well, I became obsessed,” she says with a smile.
Kirshner says all this while in town last week to present her so-called paper documentary at the International Festival of Authors. The 33-year-old explains that she became fixated with the idea of the four-part book – which took the actress and many collaborators to some of the most ravaged places in Chechnya, Myanmar, Juarez, Mexico, and Malawi – after 9/11.
Kirshner committed, not just acting
Posted on: October 21, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
I’m a big fan of Mia Kirshner (love her portrayal of train-wreck master diva Jenny on “The L Word”) and I think she has an interesting point about the link between celebrity and activism. — Karen
If you get annoyed when actors engage in activism, Mia Kirshner is right there with you. The 33-year-old actress — who played a stripper in the revered 1994 movie “Exotica” and has worked steadily since, most often in roles as sexualized smarty-pants, like her character Jenny Schecter on “The L Word” — said recently, “I think some actors have exploited their philanthropic efforts to promote a film.”
Kirshner was saying such things because her book, “I Live Here,” released last week, is unmistakably philanthropic. Over the last six years, she traveled to four messy and malignant parts of the world — the Russian republic of Ingushetia; Burma; Juarez, Mexico; and Malawi — that have large disenfranchised populations. “I Live Here,” is the product of those trips: Its four separate volumes, one for each region, tell stories about the women and children in these places through journal entries, collages, photographs, paintings, graphic novellas and images of found objects. Kirshner wrangled many collaborators; J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons are the co-authors, and there is a boatload of other contributors, including some of the subjects themselves.
Mia Kirshner backs up her commitment
Posted on: October 19, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
The ‘L Word’ actress reaches into her pocket to create the book ‘I Live Here,’ about troubled lives in places of upheaval.
If you get annoyed when actors engage in activism, Mia Kirshner is right there with you. The 33-year-old actress — who played a stripper in the revered 1994 movie “Exotica” and has worked steadily since, most often in roles as sexualized smarty-pants, like her character Jenny Schecter on “The L Word” — said recently, “I think some actors have exploited their philanthropic efforts to promote a film.”
Kirshner was saying such things because her book, “I Live Here,” released last week, is unmistakably philanthropic. Over the last six years, she traveled to four messy and malignant parts of the world — the Russian republic of Ingushetia; Burma; Juarez, Mexico; and Malawi — that have large disenfranchised populations. “I Live Here,” is the product of those trips: Its four separate volumes, one for each region, tell stories about the women and children in these places through journal entries, collages, photographs, paintings, graphic novellas and images of found objects. Kirshner wrangled many collaborators; J.B. MacKinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons are the co-authors, and there is a boatload of other contributors, including some of the subjects themselves.
Mia on Causecast.org
Posted on: October 07, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here, Media Alerts | 0 Comments
Please visit Causecast.org to read Mia’s blog entries with even more information about ‘I Live Here’ including photos, trailers and also the new I Live Here Foundation that she has set up in order to help fund creative writing programs in the areas she and her partners have visited. If you would like to donate to the foundation, you can do so through Causecast.org or through the official I Live Here website.
Thank you to Ryan at causecast.org for making this post possible.
Please be advised that the below trailers for the book contain some disturbing images and should be viewed with caution.
Global Voices: Mia Kirshner’s I Live Here
Posted on: September 22, 2008 | Filed under: I Live Here | 0 Comments
Actress Mia Kirshner is probably best known for her role on the Showtime drama The L Word, but for the past several years, she’s been focusing her creative energies on the people that nobody seems to notice: women and children around the world who have been displaced, silenced and forgotten. Over the past few years, 33-year-old Kirshner has traveled to some of the most desolate and dangerous countries in the world to see and meet some of the most victimized people, in hopes of bringing the world’s attention to their plight.
One part of her commitment to bringing attention to the world of global refugees is I Live Here, an unusual collaborative graphic work that will be published by Pantheon in October. A mixed media combination of comics, photos, journals and travelogues, I Live Here is a four-segment book collection, with each section–—and each artist—focused on the personal and social trauma of displaced people in a different country. Much acclaimed comics journalist Joe Sacco, creator of Palestine, produces a graphic novel that examines war-torn Ingushetia, Chechnya; comics memoirist Phoebe Gloeckner examines the serial killing of women in Juarez, Mexico; French-Algerian artist Kamel Khélif surveys ethnic killing in Burma and Thailand; and finally, there’s a children’s story by author J.B. McKinnon and artist Julie Morstad that tackles the AIDS epidemic the African country of Malawi. Other writer-contributors include Chris Abani, nonfiction writer Karen Connelly and short story writer Lauren Kirschner.