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Emmy Bright

Limited edition print by Headmaster No. 8 contributor Emmy Bright (Detroit).

 

Some Queers Move to Some Cities: An Analysis by Emmy Bright

Detroit-based artist Emmy Bright produced the series Some Queers Move To Some Cities for Headmaster No. 8. Inspired by the Village People’s songs about finding yourself in traditionally gay destinations – “San Francisco,” “Fire Island,” and “Key West” among them – we asked Bright to interview a number of queer transplants about their trajectories, incorporating her research into a visual project. We wondered whether queers still flock to cities to find their communities, or whether that very notion was outdated in the digital era.
 
Bright interviewed five queer people who had relocated throughout the United States for a variety of reasons: work, school, relationships, lack of work, dissolved relationships. The project can be seen in its entirety in Headmaster No. 8.
 
Bright’s project later received recognition in the form of a Merit Award from the Society of Publication Designers (Best Spread – Indie).

My practice is about undoing, compelling systemic logic to attack itself. I champion the stupid, the wrong, and the failed narrative; I make comparisons that fall apart and diagrams that try to explain but instead contain their own undoing.
— Emmy Bright

In addition to the magazine project, we worked with Bright to produce “This place…”, a limited edition 11” x 17” color separation print. Bright explains her process: " This color print was made by misusing an antique photocopier. Two unique analogue layers were collaged together by running graph paper through the copier multiple times. Each color was printed separately making the translucent colors possible. The process is very much like silkscreening but with a photocopier." As a result, no two prints are identical.
 
Additionally, Bright produced an editioned folio (below) featuring all ten prints that appear in her Headmaster project. (A few of the prints vary slightly from the images appearing in the issue.) They are available in a handsome full cloth portfolio in an edition of 10, four of which are still available.
 
Emmy Bright (b. 1977) received her BA from University of Chicago, an M.Ed from Harvard and MFA from Cranbrook in Print Media. She has had Fellowships at the Ox-Bow School of Art (MI), Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (ME), and New Urban Arts (RI). She has produced commissioned projects for the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and Brown University. She has taught at RISD, City College of New York and she has been a visiting artist for the Museum School in Boston, Brown University, and the RISD Museum.  Currently, she lives in Detroit and is the Artist in Residence and department head of Print Media at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She is represented by David Klein Gallery.

Folio photos by PD Rearick