Associations no.1 with Danielle Goshay
A new iteration based in collaboration
I must start writing today with one tragedy that is made of millions and millions: the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, committed by Israel with support from my ‘representative’ governments, has entered its 3rd month.
The United States and Canada, two polities to which I somehow belong through my parents’ trajectories out of Iran over fourty years prior, have never been on the side of the colonized. I hope this is a wake up call to the many whose dedicated calls to their represented officials over the last two months have gone unheard. The dream of representative democracy is kind, it is optimistic and I, too, so desire for my voice to be heard.
In these institutions designed to disenfranchise us, to privelege the few over the many, I am not optimisitc. What brings me hope for a free Palestine, and the broader freedoms that means for us all, are the poems by Palestinian poets (like Mahmoud Darwish or Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated alongside his family by Israel last week), the unceasing solidarity actions across the world, the beautiful proliferation of Palestinain song, dance, and textile, and the conversations we have with each other.
Creative connection is one of the best tools we have for peace and decolonization (despite what western media wants us to believe, these two are the same).
Since I was a teenager, working with others was always where I found my purpose. I was a shy kid who didn’t have many friends, so teamworking around a certain goal was my way of connecting to my peers. The habit of collaboration has led me to student organizing, community organizing, social movement organizing, and art organizing (respectively!). After all these years of organizing and building totally trasnformative relationships, I’ve found myself in a period of life without a collective to fall back on.
My new project, Assosciations, comes as a salve (not a cure). Associations is many: iterative, periodical, collaborative, urgent, spacious, print, public, private. The idea is to create a zine in a day, working with a friend whose creative practice I admire, and allowing our individual voices to come through while creating something that only the two of us could make.
Associations no. 1 is a 16-page photo-poetry zine made in collaboration between Danielle Goshay and I on 19 November, 2023. Danielle is an visionary talent whose humility would surprise you to learn that she’s one of Toronto’s finest photographers. Since November 2022, she’s been my mentor. Associations’ first issue serves as a record of Danielle and I’s exchange as the mentorship comes to an end, pointing toward a future of friendship and collaboration.
The small zine collects a mighty selection of photographs by both Danielle and I. To shed some light on the process, we started by selecting the images we wanted to see of each others’ in this collection — Daniell choosing mine and me her’s. We then wrote a through each others’ images for about fifteen minutes, before coming back together and writing an exquisite-corpse style poem through our writing through each others’ images. Iteration seems key. You’ll find our co-written poem in the zine.
The poems begins, as above —
Silence wafts in like a night actor Connectivity binds hazy and heavy lidded. The space between Sky and Sea To flow into and into To wade through and recall.
Finally, Danielle and I sequenced the images and text with our intution pointed toward resonance of color, shape, and meaning. With a little fine-tuned in indesign, I sent it off to print at Front Print in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market neighborhood and picked up the edition of 50 one week later.
We were able to do in a day what some are able to do in a month, or months. That’s the goal of Associations — artfully folding simplicty into urgency with an ethos of collaboration and deliberation. Like the best of us, Associations waits and watches until an oportune moment presents itself — then, it takes swift action. My modus operendi over the past few years, starting this project is my way of not only celebrating my relationships but aligning my life philosophy with my work.
Associations no. 1 is available to order on my website, on sale for $10 until 25 Dec and $12.50 thereafter: https://darianrazdar.info/Associations-Zine. Ask me about local pick up in Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, or CMDX !
This project, and the other inter-related ones I’ve had the chance to work on this year, remind me of David Lynch saying about his family — “Just the word project makes us happy. . . if we had a billbaord called “PROJECT” it would make us so happy!” (13:55 in the video below). I’m grateful to live in a world with so many other project people : )
Upcoming happenings I’m looking forward to . . .
1 )
’s Virtual Eros Study group workshop on Glory Holes, taking place today (10 Dec) at 1PM EST.2 ) Polotechnic’s Anniversary Party, featuring electronic underground music from the Iranian diaspora, hosted by UKAI at the Bridge (Adelaide St W, Toronto) Saturdy night, 16 December
3 ) The Arena Annual 2024 — a group publication from one of my favorite social media platforms + a virtual launch and reading event on Friday 15 December at 1PM EST.
Thanks for reading! Signing off for now,
Darian