WHOAH!! NYU's Fales Library has announced a new addition to its legendary trove of special collections: the Riot Grrrrl Collection, intended to "support scholarship in feminism, punk activism, queer theory and music history." The Riot Grrrl Collection's first major acquisition is a hefty score--Kathleen Hanna has donated her personal collection of zines, correspondence and other writing from the early days of Riot Grrrl and her time in Bikini Kill. How fantastic is it that people will actually be able to thumb through Kathleen Hanna's personal zine collection and LETTERS? It's a 90's dream come true, but more significantly, the collection will stand as officially sanctioned acknowledgment of riot grrrl as an important contribution to feminism worthy of preservation and study.
The Kathleen Hanna Papers (really love writing that) are being overseen by Fales Library Senior Archivist and longtime Seagull friend Lisa Darms, who played a key role in the acquisition of Hanna's papers as well as the creation of the Riot Grrrl archives. She works extensively with the amazing Downtown Collection, which houses touchstones and relics from a bevy of pioneers such as Nan Goldin, Jimmy DeSana, and Richard Hell. The upcoming exhibition Downtown Pix: Mining the Fales Archives, 1961–1991 promises to be a juicy photographic survey of three decade's worth of tumultuous, artful and crazed times in downtown NYC, archived for your vicarious viewing pleasure. Get into it!
XO,
Molly, SEAGULL
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