HANA MENDEL
COLUMBIA PUBLISHING COURSE, Summer 2022: An intensive six-week program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism that teaches all aspects of the magazine and digital publishing industries.
Assignment #1: Mock-up a book.
Title: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Yoko?
Subtitle: The Inconvenient Genius of Difficult Women
Author: ****
Audience: For readers of Sharp by Michelle Dean, as well as admirers of Roxanne Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Sylvia Plath. For readers of Art Forum and New Yorker. For women interested in literary criticism and artist biographies centered on social history and feminist theory.
Editorial Description: “Prickly.” “Peculiar.” “Abrasive.”
These are words that have been used to describe artists Yoko Ono, Sylvia Plath, Vivian Maier, Lillian Hellman, and Louise Bourgeois. Their contributions are undeniable, they remain the subject of unflattering praise, and their genius seen through a lens of condescension.
“The unconventional choices of women are explained in the language of mental illness, trauma, or sexual repression [...] as symptoms of pathology rather than as an active response to structural challenges or mere preference.” Expanding on her much discussed New Yorker article on Vivian Maier, journalist and critic **** highlights a varying group of female artists in How Do You Solve a Problem Like Yoko: The Inconvenient Genius of Difficult Women.
Already established as an avant-garde performance artist when she was publicly scapegoated for disbanding The Beatles, is it all-that surprising that Yoko Ono applied her acquired celebrity into her performance? Conversely, Vivian Maier kept her photographic genius private, living simply as a nanny in the suburbs of Chicago. Why is her choice of lifestyle, one which provided her with the financial freedom and creative isolation she desired, portrayed as tragic?
**** challenges the accepted discourse by highlighting these artists’ agency, identifying the reduction which rests at the intersection of woman and artist. This empathetic yet unsparing analysis proves to be a lasting testament to the creative contrarian.
Assignment #2: Mock-up a digital publication.
Art Direction: Hana Mendel & Kian Maple
Graphic Design/ Brand Identity: Hana Mendel
Photo Illustration: Hana Mendel
UX/ UI Design: Hannah Kekst & Kian Maple
Sample photo illustrations for articles