Happy Hour Salon: WE’RE PREGNANT
Please join Room 220 as we celebrate the release of the newest Press Street publication, We’re Pregnant, with a Happy Hour Salon from 6 – 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28, at the Press Street HQ (3718 St. Claude Ave.).
We’re Pregnant is a chapbook of short fiction by Room 220’s esteemed editor, Nathan C. Martin, along with photography by Akasha Rabut, Sophie T. Lvoff, and Grissel Giuliano. The book contains three of Martin’s short stories—which explore in morbid fashion anxieties related to sex, disease, marriage, and childbirth—with images inspired by the stories from each of the photographers. The result is a slim, elegant volume containing three dark couplets of photography and text.
The Happy Hour Salon for We’re Pregnant will be a multimedia extravaganza. It will feature an exhibition of photographs from the book—as well as outtakes—in the Antenna Gallery, a reading by Martin, and musical performances by Leyla McCalla and HAWN. We’re Pregnant will be on sale for $10, and complimentary libations and snacks will be on hand (though we suggest donations).
The exhibition of photos from We’re Pregnant will be on view at the Antenna Gallery from Feb. 23 – March 3.
About those involved:
Nathan C. Martin’s fiction has been published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and the Black Warrior Review—two of the stories in We’re Pregnant originally appeared in those journals. His criticism, journalism, and interviews have been published by BOMB, VICE, Stop Smiling, the Oxford American, American City, the Chicago Tribune, Pelican Bomb, and other places. And, of course, he is founder and editor of Room 220.
Photo by Akasha Rabut in WE’RE PREGNANT
Akasha Rabut’s photographs have been exhibited nationally in galleries and published by outlets such as VICE, Stop Smiling, Beautiful Decay, Fecal Face, and Not Common People. She is a founding member of the photography collective Southerly Gold and currently works on the photography staff of the Historic New Orleans Collection. She graduated with a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Photo by Sophie Lvoff in WE’RE PREGNANT
Sophie T. Lvoff received her BFA in Photography & Imaging and Philosophy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2008. She is currently completing her MFA in Studio Art from Tulane University. Exhibitions of her photographs have been shown in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe, and Africa, and she is a member of Good Children Gallery in New Orleans.
Photo by Grissel Giuliano in WE’RE PREGNANT
Grissel Giuliano received a B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Vermont. She is a collector of scientific models, natural specimens, and oddities. She has had exhibitions at Coup d’Oeil Art Consortium, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, as well as the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is a current featured artist for The Drop.
++
Left: Michael Lee and John Craun of HAWN; Right: Leyla McCalla
Leyla McCalla is a multi-instrumentalist and member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who were nominated for a 2013 Grammy. She graduated from New York University, where she studied cello performance and chamber music, and has performed with musicians such as Mos Def and Gil Scott Heron. Her forthcoming album, Vari-Colored Songs, is a tribute to Langston Hughes. She lives in New Orleans.
HAWN is a three-piece musical debacle consisting of Michael Jeffrey Lee, John Craun, and Michael Winter. Lee is the author of Something In My Eye and Craun holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa. Their lyrics betray their writerly bent. They recently released an EP, Spree. They all live above a barber shop on St. Claude Avenue.
