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Chris Cook
EIP: What’s your earliest memory related to your passion for painting and photography?
CHRIS: My earliest memory of my passion for painting and photography dates back to my childhood. Back then, I always had a sense of observing the world around me and kept a notebook to record all my sketches. I was captivated by my family photo albums and the way they told stories beyond words—how a single image could evoke emotions and preserve histories. Painting, likewise, became a space where I could translate my thoughts and observations into something tangible, using layers of color and texture to reflect my perspective of the world. Over time, I came to realize that both mediums provided me with a voice—one that I could use to explore identity, memory, and the social realities that shape us.
EIP: How has politics changed the way you view and approach your craft?
CHRIS: Politics has greatly affected my approach to my craft, making me more intentional about my work and the messages I choose to convey. I have come to realize that art is never created in isolation; every brushstroke and photograph is influenced by the cultural and social climate in which we live. My work often reflects the intersections of race, identity, and power. It questions dominant narratives while presenting alternative perspectives rooted in lived experiences. In many ways, politics has heightened my awareness of the responsibilities that artists hold—to document, critique, and envision new possibilities. Whether through satire, symbolism, or direct commentary, my practice now serves as both a mirror and a call to action.
EIP: Your paintings seem like they are a cultural commentary by extension, is this true? If so, please elaborate on why or why not.
CHRIS: My paintings serve as a commentary on culture and reflect the times we live in. I draw from historical references and contemporary realities to create pieces that engage viewers in meaningful conversations. Through the lens of pop culture, propaganda, and personal narratives, my art explores how media, history, and societal structures shape our collective consciousness. I am particularly interested in how visual media, such as magazines, posters, and advertisements, influences our understanding of identity and politics. My goal is to encourage viewers to question what they see and to reflect on why they perceive it that way. Ultimately, my work seeks to bridge the past and present, encouraging people to reflect on the systems that govern our lives and how we can navigate them with awareness and agency. •
Chris Cook is a fine artist who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He dedicates himself to preserving stories and experiences that capture the beauty and complexity of the human experience for future generations.
More from: Chris Cook
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Global Echoes of Resistance:
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"title" : "Chris Cook",
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"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/global-resistance-art-chris-cook",
"date" : "2025-02-04 15:33:00 -0500",
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"content" : "EIP: What’s your earliest memory related to your passion for painting and photography?CHRIS: My earliest memory of my passion for painting and photography dates back to my childhood. Back then, I always had a sense of observing the world around me and kept a notebook to record all my sketches. I was captivated by my family photo albums and the way they told stories beyond words—how a single image could evoke emotions and preserve histories. Painting, likewise, became a space where I could translate my thoughts and observations into something tangible, using layers of color and texture to reflect my perspective of the world. Over time, I came to realize that both mediums provided me with a voice—one that I could use to explore identity, memory, and the social realities that shape us.EIP: How has politics changed the way you view and approach your craft?CHRIS: Politics has greatly affected my approach to my craft, making me more intentional about my work and the messages I choose to convey. I have come to realize that art is never created in isolation; every brushstroke and photograph is influenced by the cultural and social climate in which we live. My work often reflects the intersections of race, identity, and power. It questions dominant narratives while presenting alternative perspectives rooted in lived experiences. In many ways, politics has heightened my awareness of the responsibilities that artists hold—to document, critique, and envision new possibilities. Whether through satire, symbolism, or direct commentary, my practice now serves as both a mirror and a call to action.EIP: Your paintings seem like they are a cultural commentary by extension, is this true? If so, please elaborate on why or why not.CHRIS: My paintings serve as a commentary on culture and reflect the times we live in. I draw from historical references and contemporary realities to create pieces that engage viewers in meaningful conversations. Through the lens of pop culture, propaganda, and personal narratives, my art explores how media, history, and societal structures shape our collective consciousness. I am particularly interested in how visual media, such as magazines, posters, and advertisements, influences our understanding of identity and politics. My goal is to encourage viewers to question what they see and to reflect on why they perceive it that way. Ultimately, my work seeks to bridge the past and present, encouraging people to reflect on the systems that govern our lives and how we can navigate them with awareness and agency. •"
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"title" : "Black Liberation Views on Palestine",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/black-liberation-on-palestine",
"date" : "2025-10-17 09:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/mandela-keffiyeh.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "In understanding global politics, it is important to look at Black liberation struggles as one important source of moral perspective. So, when looking at Palestine, we look to Black leaders to see how they perceived the Palestinian struggle in relation to theirs, from the 1960’s to today.Why must we understand where the injustice lies? Because, as Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”{% for person in site.data.quotes-black-liberation-palestine %}{{ person.name }}{% for quote in person.quotes %}“{{ quote.text }}”{% if quote.source %}— {{ quote.source }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
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"title" : "First Anniversary Celebration of EIP",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "events",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/1st-anniversary-of-eip",
"date" : "2025-10-14 18:01:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/WSA_EIP_Launch_Cover.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent Publishing",
"content" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent PublishingJoin Everything is Political on November 21st for the launch of our End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine.This members-only evening will feature a benefit dinner, cocktails, and live performances in celebration of a year of independent media, critical voices, and collective resistance.The EventNovember 21, 2025, 7-11pmLower Manhattan, New YorkLaunching our End-of-Year Special Edition MagazineSpecial appearances and performancesFood & Drink includedTickets are extremely limited, reserve yours now!Become an annual print member: get x back issues of EIP, receive the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine, and come to the Anniversary Celebration.$470Already a member? Sign in to get your special offer. Buy Ticket $150 Just $50 ! and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine Buy ticket $150 and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine "
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{
"title" : "Miu Miu Transforms the Apron From Trad Wife to Boss Lady: The sexiest thing in Paris was a work garment",
"author" : "Khaoula Ghanem",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/miu-miu-transforms-the-apron-from-trad-wife-to-boss-lady",
"date" : "2025-10-14 13:05:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_MiuMiu_Apron.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.",
"content" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.From the opening look—German actress Sandra Hüller in a utilitarian deep-blue apron layered over a barn jacket and neat blue shirting—the thesis was loud: the “cover” becomes the thing itself. As silhouettes marched on, aprons multiplied and mutated—industrial drill cotton with front pockets, raw canvas, taffeta and cloqué silk, lace-edged versions that flirted with lingerie, even black leather and crystal-studded incarnations that reframed function as ornament. What the apron traditionally shields (clothes, bodies, “the good dress”) was inverted; the protection became the prized surface. Prada herself spelled it out: “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it symbolizes women, from factories through to serving to the home.”Miu Miu Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. SuppliedThis inversion matters historically. The apron’s earliest fashion-adjacent life was industrial. It served as a barrier against grease, heat, stain. It was a token of paid and unpaid care. Miu Miu tapped that lineage directly (canvas, work belts, D-ring hardware), then sliced it against domestic codes (florals, ruffles, crochet), and finally pushed into nightlife with bejeweled and leather bibs. The garment’s migration across materials made its social migrations visible. It is a kitchen apron, yes, but also one for labs, hospitals, and factories; the set and styling insisted on that plurality.What makes the apron such a loaded emblem is not just what it covers, but what it reveals about who has always been working. Before industrialization formalized labor into factory shifts and wages, women were already performing invisible labour, the kind that doesn’t exist on payrolls but sits at the foundation of every functioning society. They were cooking, cleaning, raising children, nursing the ill. These tasks were foundational to every economy and yet absent from every ledger. Even when women entered the industrial workforce, from textile plants to wartime assembly lines, their domestic responsibilities did not disappear, they doubled. In that context, the apron here is a quiet manifesto for the strength that goes unrecorded, unthanked, and yet keeps civilization running.The algorithmic rise of the “tradwife,” the influencer economy that packages domesticity as soft power, is the contemporary cultural shadow here. Miu Miu’s apron refuses that rehearsal. In fact, it’s intentionally awkward—oversized, undone, worn over bikinis or with sturdy shoes—so the viewer can’t flatten it into Pinterest-ready nostalgia. Critics noted the collection as a reclamation, a rebuttal to the flattening forces of the feed: the apron as a uniform for endurance rather than submission. The show notes framed it simply as “a consideration of the work of women,” a reminder that the invisible economies of effort—paid, unpaid, emotional—still structure daily life.If that sounds unusually explicit for a luxury runway, consider the designer. Prada trained as a mime at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, earned a PhD in political science, joined the Italian Communist Party, and was active in the women’s rights movement in 1970s Milan. Those facts are not trivia; they are the grammar of her clothes. Decades of “ugly chic” were, essentially, a slow campaign against easy consumption and default beauty. In 2026, the apron becomes the newest dialect. An emblem drawn from leftist feminist history, recoded into a product that still has to sell. That tension—belief versus business—is the Miuccia paradox, and it’s precisely why these aprons read as statements, not trends.The runway narrative traced a journey from function to fetish. Early looks were squarely utilitarian—thick cottons, pocketed bibs—before migrating toward fragility and sparkle. Lace aprons laid transparently over swimmers; crystal-studded aprons slipped across cocktail territory; leather apron-dresses stiffened posture into armor. The sequencing proposed the same silhouette can encode labor, intimacy, and spectacle depending on fabrication. If most brands smuggle “workwear” in as set dressing, Miu Miu forced it onto the body as the central garment and an unmissable reminder that the feminine is often asked to be both shield and display at once.It’s instructive to read this collection against the house’s last mega-viral object: the micro-mini of Spring 2022, a pleated, raw-hem wafer that colonized timelines and magazine covers. That skirt’s thesis was exposure—hip bones and hemlines as post-lockdown spectacle, Y2K nostalgia framed as liberation-lite. The apron, ironically, covers. Where the micro-mini trafficked in the optics of freedom (and the speed of virality), the apron asks about the conditions that make freedom possible: who launders, who cooks, who cares? To move from “look at me” to “who is working here?” is a pivot from optics to ethics, without abandoning desire. (The aprons are, after all, deeply covetable.) In a platform economy that still rewards the shortest hemline with the biggest click-through, this is a sophisticated counter-program.Yet the designer is not romanticizing toil. There’s wit in the ruffles and perversity in the crystals; neither negate labor, they metabolize it. The most striking image is the apron treated as couture-adjacent. Traditionally, an apron protects the precious thing beneath; here, the apron is the precious thing. You could call that hypocrisy—luxurizing the uniform of workers. Or, strategy, insisting that the symbols of care and effort deserve visibility and investment.Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. The “tradwife” script thrives because it is aesthetically legible and commercially scalable. It packages gender ideology as moodboard. Miu Miu counters with garments whose legibility flickers. The collection’s best looks ask viewers to reconcile tenderness with toughness, convenience with care, which is exactly the mental choreography demanded of women in every context from office to home to online.If you wanted a season-defining “It” item, you’ll still find it. The apron is poised to proliferate across fast-fashion and luxury alike. But the deeper success is structural: Miu Miu re-centered labor as an aesthetic category. That’s rarer than a viral skirt. It’s a reminder that clothes don’t merely decorate life, they describe and negotiate it. In making the apron the subject rather than the prop, Prada turned a garment of service into a platform for agency. It’s precisely the kind of cultural recursion you’d expect from a designer shaped by feminist politics, who never stopped treating fashion as an instrument of thought as much as style.The last image to hold onto is deceptively simple: a woman in an apron, neither fetishized nor infantilized, striding, hands free. Not a costume for nostalgia, not a meme for the feed, but a working uniform reframed, respected, and suddenly, undeniably beautiful. That is Miu Miu’s provocation for Spring 2026: the work behind the work, made visible at last."
}
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