War & Drugs

Kristiana’s cut and paste collages are lo-tech works of genius. They look simple, but scratch the surface and you’ll find she examines some mighty important subjects. In War & Drugs, she makes the leap from Pfizer’s creation of Penicillin to help keep WWII soldiers alive to the use of mood-altering drugs for mind control. “Why just wash away the day, when you can wash away the years?” she asks, by way of images and phrases sliced from a patchwork of other printed sources. The use of drugs like Zoloft and Viagra is compared to the war on terrorism: buildings crash and doom is prophesied against the backdrop of rosy, happy advertising images. By the end of the zine, Clemens has envisioned a horrifying science fiction future where we all live in trance states, television controls our minds and our moods, and thoughts are dictated by corporations. And she does it all without writing a single word or drawing anything herself – it’s all borrowed language and art. (Emily Pohl-Weary)

collage zine, $2, Kristiana Clemens, c/o Warts and All, 150 Palmerston Ave, Toronto, ON, M6J 2J1, [email protected]

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