Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records, 1990-2012, undated

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Summary

Title:
Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records
Dates:
1990-2012, undated
Creators:
July, Miranda, 1974- and Goss, Jacqueline, 1966-
Abstract:
Joanie 4 Jackie, a video art project comprising "chainletters and zines," was established by interdisciplinary artist Miranda July in 1995 and later continued by students at Bard College. An active participant in the Riot Grrrl scene in the 1990s, July was frustrated by the lack of girls and women creating film and video -- particularly women of color, Queer women, women of lower socioeconomic strata, and older women -- and sought to remedy their absence with a project that embraced the "DIY" ethos of the Riot Grrrl subculture. The collection comprises over 300 videos, zines, and supporting materials collected, compiled, and circulated as part of the Joanie 4 Jackie project, as well as editing masters and videos documenting Joanie 4 Jackie events and media coverage. Also present are administrative files, correspondence relating to the project, posters, and ephemera.
Extent:
23.79 Linear Feet (20 boxes, 2 flatfile folders)
Language:
Material is in English.
Preferred citation:

Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records, 1990-2012, undated, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2016.M.20

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2016m20

Background

Scope and content:

The Joanie 4 Jackie archive holds approximately 300 video recordings in various formats (VHS, BetaSP, U-matic, MiniDV, Hi8, DVD), including related documents that were created and distributed as part of the underground feminist video project. A significant component of the archive is the entire set of the Chainletter Tapes and the curated Co-Star Tapes compilation tapes. There are also other video and audio recordings documenting the promotion screenings and events for Joanie 4 Jackie. Of particular note are two boxes of correspondence, one representing communication with Joanie 4 Jackie contributors, and one comprising fan mail from girls and women of all ages, articulating the personal impact of the project.

Administrative files document the behind-the-scenes operations of Joanie 4 Jackie, along with clippings, ephemera, grant applications, screening information, and other supporting material. Also included are posters, photographs, ephemera, grant applications, and project proposals that reflect the work of Bard College students and faculty on the Joanie 4 Jackie Tutorial class.

The archive reflects the artistic and personal interests prevalent among young female filmmakers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The various themes and topics of the films revolve around girlhood, womanhood, queerness, love, sex, the mundane, trauma, patriarchy, violence, and horror — all from the female perspective. Some of the original contributors to the project have since become recognized artists, curators, and academics, such as K8 Hardy, Jennifer Reeder, Rita Gonzalez, and Julia Bryan Wilson. The Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records provide insight into how women filmmakers created networks and alternative spaces with each other in the early internet era prior to the rise of social media platforms.

Biographical / historical:

Miranda July was born in Vermont in 1974, grew up in Berkeley, California, and currently lives in Los Angeles. She is a writer, a film director, and an artist. July moved to Portland, Oregon after quitting school in 1995, where she created the Big Miss Moviola project (later renamed to Joanie 4 Jackie for legal reasons), an underground all-female film network. July launched the project by creating a pamphlet, titled Challenge & a Promise, inviting girls and women to send in their homemade movies. The pamphlet emphasized that every movie would be accepted regardless of genre or topic. For July, the goal of the project was to provide a network for female artists to share their work and lives. The fliers were distributed at punk shows, colleges, and grocery stores, and later, to reach a wider audience, the project was advertised in the LA Weekly. Every female artist who submitted a movie received what July called a chainletter tape, which was a compilation of ten movies, including the submitted artist's movie. For each of these tapes, July included a zine with information about each artist from the compilation. Girls and women from all over the United States and Canada submitted films in hopes of being included in the chainletter.

As the Big Miss Moviola project started to grow, July launched a separate, curated series in 1998, titled the Co-Star Tapes. This series focused on young feminist curators who produced curated and thematic tapes. Three compilations of the Co-Star Tapes were made in 1998 and 2000, curated by July, Rita Gonzalez, and Astria Suparak, respectively.

July originally titled the project Big Miss Moviola to convey the significance of her project. In 2000, July was forced to rename her project after receiving a cease and desist letter from Moviola Digital. In 2001, the project was renamed Joanie 4 Jackie, mirroring a common Riot Grrrl phrase "Girl 4 Girl," meaning women standing up for and encouraging each other.

In 2003, July transferred the project to Bard College in New York, where students continued to produce chainletters, organize screenings, and exhibit materials from the Joanie 4 Jackie project until 2007. The Joanie 4 Jackie papers were originally deposited on loan to Bard professor Jackie Goss, where the collection remained accessible to students until its 2014 transfer to the Getty Research Institute.

Joanie 4 Jackie lasted for more than ten years and featured the work of over 200 women filmmakers in 22 compilation tapes, with screenings hosted by July at numerous venues, from punk clubs to art centers.

Since launching the Joanie 4 Jackie project, Miranda July has further developed her multidisciplinary practice of fine art, filmmaking, performance art, literature, music, and social media, all linked to a recurring theme of the desire for human connection.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Miranda July. Acquired in 2016.
Processing information:

Processed and described by Nancy Escalante under the supervision of Kit Messick in 2017. Laura Schroffel encoded the container list from an existing inventory in February 2017; processing was completed by Kit Messick in 2018. Finding aid completed by Petra Warren in 2020.

Arrangement:

Arranged in four series: Series I. Chainletter tapes, 1995-2011; Series II. Associated event recordings and other media, 1996-2008, undated; Series III. Administrative files and documentation, 1990-2011, undated; Series IV. 4 Jackie at Bard College, 2000-2012.

Physical location:
Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Laura Schroffel, Nancy Escalante, Kit Messick and Petra Warren
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-06-04 08:24:14 -0700 .

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers. Audiovisual materials are unavailable until reformatted; contact Reference for information.

Terms of access:

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Preferred citation:

Joanie 4 Jackie videos and records, 1990-2012, undated, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2016.M.20

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2016m20

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
Website