Posts tagged with "What we're up to"

Ahimsa Ecovillage

By Ari | May 13, 08 12:53 PM

Our ecovillage idea continues to gather steam - a bunch of people have been emailing with us about it! We're evolving the "radical solidarity" idea into an ideology of sorts so we renamed the ecovillage Ahimsa for now, instead. (Ahimsa, or non-violence, was the idea behind veganism back when it was first defined by Donald Watson in 1944).

To help get the word out about the project and to document its progress, we've put up a simple webpage for it at shirari.com/ahimsa/. Even if you're not vegan, or never thought you had the money for home ownership, there's room for you at Ahimsa - check it out.

Two and a Half Weeks in Israel, Amsterdam and Iceland

By Shira | May 12, 08 05:36 PM

Israel (232 Photos)

Amsterdam (232 Photos)

Iceland (207 Photos)

Photos from Ari and more about the trip coming soon :)

Our Eutopic Vision at Forbes.com

By Shira | Apr 11, 08 06:08 PM

Ari's rendering of our eutopia

When Ari and I posted our vision of a Radical Solidarity Ecovillage to the Intentional Communities Directory, we really didn't know what to expect. So far, we've gotten a couple of email inquiries from potential members who we're going to connect with in Ithaca, and we're eagerly awaiting more interest.

One thing we certainly didn't expect was to be contacted by Forbes.com. After Elisabeth Eaves interviewed us for her article Ecotopia we were kind of nervous. She had never heard of Community Supported Agriculture, not to mention Freeganism or an assortment of other strategies that we discussed. Considering that Forbes is entrenched in capitalism, we worried that maybe our earnest ramblings might be used against us.

Luckily that was not the case! In fact, we're right up at the top of the article, and we don't sound (too) crazy:

After six years in the city, Shira Golding and Ari Moore want to try something new. The two 27-year-old artists came to New York after college, but now yearn for less urban and more affordable living. Rather than retreat to suburbia, the two are trying to recruit like-minded souls to join them in an artistic, vegan commune, which they plan to form in upstate New York.

"The number of people doesn't matter so much as shared values," says Golding, who then elaborates on a philosophy of animal rights, ecological sustainability and "freeganism," in which "you abstain from capitalism by getting things for free or [by] barter[ing]."

Golding and Moore's utopian vision is in its infancy, but they aren't alone in their desire to build their own self-contained community.

If we're going to be picky, freeganism doesn't really include "bartering," as much as giving and taking freely, and we prefer "intentional community" over "commune." But what really matters is that the mainstream media is paying attention to alternative visions for sustainable living. If Forbes.com, whose tagline is "Home Page for the World's Business Leaders," is doing a whole feature on utopias, who knows what's next!

Which brings me to the word "utopia." As our friend and wordsmith Orion pointed out at our Peace and Justice Passover Seder last year, “utopia” comes from the Greek for “no place” or “nowhere.” In other words a "utopia" is a better society that does not and cannot exist. That's not very optimistic. Orion suggested "eutopia" as an alternative spelling, meaning a "good, happy place." The article Visions of Utopia or Eutopia? at CommonDreams.org, puts it this way: "Eutopia is a vision of a preferable place - but one with a bridge that gets us from here to there. Visions of a better society don't attract a critical mass of people. Only future visions with a visible, viable bridge can do that - a lesson many progressives have yet to learn." Let's start building those bridges!

The Shirari Update: Recent Work

By Ari | Apr 11, 08 08:00 AM

So we're gearing up for this trip, and churning out a LOT of work before we go. In the past couple of months we've done quite a bit, much of which we've already written about. But here are some projects we haven't blogged about yet:

I worked with GLSEN to design a new look for StudentOrganizing.org and put fresh skins on their Day of Silence and Remembering Lawrence King MySpace sites.
We co-created a brand and launched a placeholder page for the new documentary Lioness, currently making the rounds at festivals. Posters and a full site are on the way... follow this film, it's a good one.
I made posters and other collateral for the freeDimensional / Casa Frela production OFF THE WALL.
Shira designed the DVD for the doc Innocent Until Proven Guilty, soon to be available for purchase at Arts Engine.
I handled the International Women's Day and May Day issues of The Socialist, the magazine of the Socialist Party USA. The May Day issue inaugurated our brand spankin' new redesign.
We designed a new film distribution brochure for Scenarios USA and rebranded (and re-designed and re-authored) their DVD collection. We also handled the collateral for their 2008 REAL DEAL Awards and Gala. (I made their site, too - though that was a few years back!)
I did a launch postcard for The Plant Republic's new site.
Shira's been a pre-screener and has been coordinating the jury process for Pangea Day, a project of TED Conferences.
I designed a guide to US citizenship and naturalization for South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) and a fresh cover for the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), through the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).
I made invitations, posters, programs, and a million other things for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center's Broadway Backwards 3 and Center Dinner 25th Anniversary Celebration.

I'm sure I'm missing a million things, so if we worked on your project and haven't mentioned it, apologies! We really love all of our work, though it can be hard (I got up at 7am and am currently running on empty...), and we've been very lucky in that we can choose to work only on projects we really want to stand behind politically and ethically. It's a good life, this. Thanks to all of our clients and friends who continue to bring these amazing projects to us.

Click! at the Brooklyn Museum - Vote for My Photo!

By Shira | Apr 3, 08 11:37 AM

This is the photo I submitted to the Brooklyn Museum's "crowd-curated" show, "Click!" Anyone can rate submissions. Check it out and give my photo a high rating, if you please :)

Shirari Industries Bought by News Corp for 2.5 Million

By Shira | Apr 1, 08 12:22 PM

We were as surprised as I'm sure you are right now when Rupert Murdoch himself called us this morning to "make a deal." We know that News Corporation is on a mission to take over the world, one media entity at a time, but we're still not quite sure why he wants our little queer, vegan operation. He must be getting pretty close to owning the entire "long tail" and Shirari Industries is just another notch on the empire's belt.

Stay tuned for a dramatically redesigned site, starting with our tagline, which is now "let's be mean!" - it has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

...April Fools!!!

I Never Thought I Would But Yes, I've Launched a MySpace Music Page

By Shira | Mar 30, 08 02:28 PM

shira playing
Originally uploaded by arimoore

There are many reasons that I dislike MySpace -- bad design, obnoxious advertising, the fact that it belongs to Rupert Murdoch -- but, the word on the street is that it's a good way to promote your music, so I've bitten the bullet and put up a page at myspace.com/shiragoldingmusic.

You can only put up six songs, so I tried to choose ones that represent the spectrum of music I like to make. Have a listen and let me know what you think. All of this is part of a plan to release an album, so I'd love feedback and any encouragement.

Radical Solidarity Ecovillage

By Ari | Mar 1, 08 03:57 PM

Hey, any activisty, creative vegans out there interested in cohousing, intentional community, or ecovillage life? Shira and I just posted a listing for a forming community, Radical Solidarity Ecovillage, in the Online Communities Directory.

We're relocating to Ithaca, New York, at the end of this coming summer, and are talking about buying a house, seeking freedom from rent - but do we really want to lock ourselves into a 30-year mortgage on a conventionally built house, is that freedom? We're very attracted to intentional community, co-housing, ecovillages, and other alternatives, but no matter how cool they are, we just can't stomach the idea of putting our labor and money into animal exploitation. (Unfortunately most communities incorporate some form of "animal husbandry".) So we thought we'd put a listing out there, see if we can find some kindred spirits. Check it out and let us know if you or anyone you know would be interested in something like it.

For a great overview of a family's experience building their own earth-friendly, mortgage-free house, check out A Low-Impact Woodland Home.

And for a glimpse at what ecovillage life can look like, check out The Farm's Ecovillage Tour:

Snow Kitten Found a Home - Ours!

By Shira | Mar 1, 08 02:42 PM

ari and snow
Originally uploaded by Shira Golding

For those of you wondering if we found someone to adopt the kitten we brought in from the cold last week, the answer is yes - us! She is ridiculously cute and affectionate, and we have totally fallen in love with her.

We got her checked out by our vet, and she's in really good shape aside from healing ears (we think she might have had frostbite). She still is being quarantined from Sid and Zora since we have to wait another week to get her tested for FIV, but we have a feeling that they're all going to get along.

Our little family is growing - hooray! And her name is...Snow.

Related: Snow Kitten Needs a Home

Hello and welcome to our brand new blog.

By Ari | Jan 8, 08 11:19 AM

Well here we are. Finally! This website has been a long time in the making. The design couldn't keep up with how fast our work has been growing and changing, and had to be totally redone several times as we reconceptualized what on earth it is we're doing here. Shira will write about her end of things, so I'll just cover my own path to this new website.

I've been blogging in some form or other since 1998 or so; my most recent blog, several years in the running, was called pinkrabbitsays. Meanwhile, I was showing my work at arimoore.com - and was increasingly realizing that my politics, activism and blogging were overlapping more and more with my graphic design and illustration work, as well as with my self-education, art and writing. I've been thinking a lot about connections lately, and seeing the value in looking at things holistically. So I think this new site comes out of that - all of our work and play under one roof.

In college folks constantly mixed up our names. Our friend Diane jokingly called us "Shirari", at one point actually sending us a package addressed to "Shirari Molding-Gore" (our last names are Golding and Moore). So here we are starting a new site and a new business together. We're calling it Shirari Industries, because we're Shira and Ari, and we're industrious. I hope you dig it. Thanks for visiting.

P.S. Please contact us if you run into anything that's not working yet - this site is fresh out of the oven!

Shirari Industries