Molly talks with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights about her experience covering Guantanamo Bay for ECCHR’s video series “Guantánamo Images and Imaginaries: Engaging With the Prison Through Art”
To see the other four videos in the series check out https://www.ecchr.eu/en/guantanamo20/exhibition/
In the quiet nights before New Years, I like to sit with my notebook and try to remember what I did in the twelve months prior — to pick out moments from the procession of meals cooked and phone calls made, of glasses of whisky emptied, drawings inked, words edited and ink spilled. Most of these memories stay in my notebook, but here is the place for a more professional accounting.
This year I wrote more of my book on the Jewish Labor Bund, which is made slower because I have to do so much for the research in Yiddish (bless you, CYCO books). I wrote less for publication, but here are a few favorite pieces:
“How the Taxi Drivers Won” for The Nation– a cover story on how New York’s cabbies pulled off one of the year’s most inspiring labor victories.
“Occupy Memory” for New York Review of Books – a meditation on Occupy Wall Street, which turned ten this year, and changed both me and the world.
A love letter to New York City for Lithub
I painted murals for Bluestockings Bookstore and the Clemente Soto Velez Center.
My art appeared on walls all over New York.
I made a video about debt for The Intercept with my ever collaborators Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt. Our video series Welcome to the Zowon an Edward R Murrow award, a gold medal from the Society for News Design, and a bunch of other awards I forgot. It was nominated for two Emmys.
I illustrated a year of covers for Dissent.
I illustrated a massive Amnesty International report on the persecution of Uighars in Xinjiang
My friends at Radix Media released Fanning the Flames, a coloring book of my old school burlesque drawings.
I’ve travelled little since COVID began. To make up for it, I had New York. I cooked for the Chinatown free fridge and left flowers at my great grandparents’ grave, and walked with BombaYo’s annual parranda in Bushwick, warmed by the joy of every old lady who stopped to dance. I went out to Hunts Point for the Teamsters strike. I hung with the taxi drivers since the first night of their sit-in at City Hall. I stayed up till dawn at the Chelsea Hotel, where a few old-school bohemians have held onto their apartments like fortresses. I made a million bottles of coquito. I had my friends, my man, my parents, my city… and though I miss the world terribly, these are enough.
Molly’s coverage of the recent strike led by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance is out now in The Nation.
Join Molly and cartoonist Ken Krimstein at The Strand in NYC for a conversation about his new book “When I Grow Up; The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teens”
The newest video for The Intercept is out now.
“A collaboration between The Intercept; artist Molly Crabapple and her creative partners at Sharp As Knives productions; and writer Astra Taylor, this short film invites us to understand our debt in new ways. Our monthly payments are a source of profit, a form of wealth transfer from struggling borrowers to the well-to-do. These profits are a source of power; debt is never just about money. In the United States, debt has long been used as a form of social control and a tool of white supremacy.”
Bluestockings and The Clemente are putting together an exciting event for Dec. 8th at 6:30pm! Both in-person (vax required) and online. Live musical performances by @chokedupnyc and Claudi of @pinclouds! Remarks from writers, artists, and organizers in our communities including @alokvmenon @ritaindianalamontra @yinq13 & @mollycrabapple! Raffle prizes! Community love!
We’re also doing another
If you donate at least 25$ to a local food bank between now and Giving Tuesday, you can enter to win one of five signed copies of “Fanning The Flames, A Molly Crabapple Coloring book” from Radix Media
Just send proof of donation to ariel@mollycrabapple.com
Five winners will be selected by Dec 1st
Offer only valid for shipping addresses within the US
Molly’s interview with The Floating Magazine is out now!
Article by Payal Khandelwal
Get your copy of Fanning The Flames, A Molly Crabapple coloring book!
We’re so proud to announce that this collaboration with Radix Media is available now, and there are still spots available at the live-coloring launch event on October 22nd at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn.
If you can’t join us, then get your copy here
Join Molly on October 22nd for a live coloring and book launch event for the new coloring book, Fanning the Flames, published by Radix Media.
Radix Media is a NYC-based worker owned printer and publisher that we are so proud have collaborated with for this project.
Molly reflects on the Occupy Wall Street Movement on its ten year anniversary in The New York Review.
Coming soon from Radix Media!
Here is the first look at the cover of Fanning The Flames, A Molly Crabapple Coloring Book. We are so proud to be collaborating with NYC-based, worker-owned, print shop Radix Media. Be sure to follow them to catch the pre-order link that’s coming very soon!
“This cover reflects the collection’s themes out loud: a penchant for political theater and satire, disdain for capitalism and profit, and a critique of voyeurism and entertainment. After all Fanning the Flames is no ordinary coloring book—it’s one that forces the user to reflect in the act of coloring, performance, and its consumption. ” – Radix Media
“The Zo” has been nominated for a “Media for a Just Society” Award.
Be sure to also watch the 73rd Emmy Awards, where “The Zo” is also nominated for two awards.
Molly contributed a chapter to the new book ” Women Refugee Voices from Asia and Africa, Travelling for Safety” which is now available for preorder from ActionAid Association.
The book brings “together first-hand accounts from women refugees and interventions by activists, academics, journalists, filmmakers, humanitarian workers, and international law experts, this book will be a must read for scholars and researchers of migration and diaspora studies, development studies, sociology and social anthropology, and politics and public policy. It will be of special interest to NGOs, policymakers, and think tanks.”
We are so proud to announce that the series of short films “The Zo” has been nominated for two Emmy Awards in the categories “Outstanding Interactive Media: Documentary”, and “Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction: Documentary”.
The Zo is a 3-part animated series illustrated by Molly Crabapple, wirtten and directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt, and narrated by Michael K. Williams for The Marshall Project and First Look Media’s streaming service, Topic.
This is the groups second and third Emmy nominations, after “A Message From The Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez” was nominated last year.
This past year Molly illustrated four covers for Dissent magazine. Dissent is available in print and mobile subscriptions here.
Molly’s review of Shahzia Sikander’s latest show “Extraordinary Realities” at the Morgan Library is on the New York Review of Books.
Molly took part in the summer installment of “Friends of Shakespeare”. If you’d like to support this indescribably special little bookstore in Paris, memberships are now available.
