Black'n'Red Friday

To: Retort
From: IB

Retort's annual "Shopping from Below" competition has rolled around again.  Tempus fugit, as they learn to say in New England prep schools. 

The Black'n'Red Friday subcommittee invite suggestions for items to be added to this year's Autonomist Holiday Gift Ideas cart (or, in the case of the precariat, basket/inside pocket). Bear in mind that the judges will be looking for just the right balance of sublimity (beauty tinged with horror) and value (measure of exploitation, or in the case of "craft" items, self-exploitation). Hint: this year's panel has been instructed to multiply the resultant by an ecofootprint co-efficient, thus ((S + V) x ef), unavoidably damaging the chances of holiday food hampers from subtropical collectives. 

That said, and despite cynics of the commodity, psychoanalytic smartypants carping about "the violence of the gift", and assorted right-livelihood Malthusians and downsizers, we remain committed to potlatch and extravagance, and to the webs of friendship so necessary for sustaining us in a dark season, strengthened by comradely shopping from below.

Entries close at solstice.  The winners will receive a gift voucher for redemption at their nearest occupied factory (hardly anyone turned away).

The subcommittee's own suggestion, for what it's worth, is this silkscreen print by Kristine Virsis - a lovely variation on a hackneyed theme, inspired by the plight of political prisoners. Kristine is a member of the revamped Justseeds/Visual Resistance Artists' Cooperative, an artist/worker owned and run cooperative, launched in the summer of 2007.  

It can be bought online at <http://www.justseeds.org/kristine_virsis/12solidar.htm>.

Kristine Virsis
Solidarity
$15
2 color silkscreen print
14"x18"
signed/unlimited edition