dada time

on fighting fascism with absurdity & handmade art

Feb 05, 2026

I struggled with what to write in this issue. Perhaps like you, I am fighting to comprehend the meaning behind the blatant cruelty of ICE raids in Minnesota, particularly the live-streamed executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the latest Epstein files drop, the continued Israeli attacks on Gaza, the fact that it was 60 degrees in Seattle today which is far too warm for the first week of February.

But also, perhaps like you, I now find myself incapable of shock and overwhelm. If these events have brought you to social justice work and interest in fighting facism in America, welcome; but for me, and others, this has been an ongoing journey for the last decade or more. Mutual aid and calling my reps and not shopping at Target and reading books to educate myself about history and civil rights and protest is nothing new, and feels no less urgent than it did a year ago, five years ago, eight years ago. Please keep doing these things; or if you don’t, please start. Resources have never been easier to find.

And if you are doing these things - perhaps you, like me, like others, need something creative to do with your hands. Perhaps you, like me, find yourself increasingly attracted to the subversive, revolutionary artists behind the early 20th century “Dada” art movement.

I will not pretend to be an art historian, but here is what I know about Dada. It was born out of post-WWI disillusionment, a reaction to a time of mass death and violence, rapidly evolving technology, corrupt nationalist politics, and regressive social values (sound familiar?). It sought to challenge the idea of art itself, eschewing aesthetics for philosophy and ideas. It raged against rational, conformist thought with absurdity and nonsense. Dada was medium agnostic, ranging from photo negatives (Man Ray) to collage (Hannah Höch) to a urinal with a fake artist’s signature (Marcel Duchamp) to poetry and plays (Tristan Tzara). While the movement lasted only a decade, it gave birth to most 20th century modern art, including surrealism, contemporary, and pop-art.

“For us, art is not an end in itself,” wrote Dada poet Hugo Ball, “but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

So yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about how art - especially art that is handmade, that values doing something over doing nothing, that fights tyranny with absurdity, that is not aesthetic or high effort - can also be a tool of protest.

At the very least, it gives me something to do with my hands.

For more on dada (and for future art inspo):

Dada | Centre Pompidou Paris
Dada | Tate
Dada | MoMA
Dadadig - Das Digitalisierungsprojekt zum 100-jährigen Jubiläum von Dada
A Brief History of Dada (Smithsonian)
The Readymade Thief by Augustus Rose: The Da Vinci Code but with famous dada artist Marcel Duchamp.

good things on the internet

SYA’s free community resilience zine is quick, easy, and very informative - print and fold for all your friends and neighbors! 📣
Alan Cumming’s incredible Traitors stylist Sam Spector 👠
In memory of Catherine O’Hara, here is one of my favorite scenes from Waiting for Guffman:

currently reading

A Realm Undone by JL Lienhardt: Congrats to JL Lienhardt on her debut novel! Everyone please go read this incredible high-magic, female driven fantasy!
The Long Game by Rachel Reid: I couldn’t get enough Heated Rivalry, so I read the sequel to the titular book/TV series for more Ilya/Shane romance. It did not disappoint.
One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad:

“It would be nice to go back to caring about the moon. So many of my favorite authors care about the moon. So much of my favorite literature orients in the direction of beauty. But surely any true appreciation of beauty would admit, exclaim even, that no description of the moon, no matter how stunning, how true, reflects as much beauty back into the world as a missile obliterating a family in their home takes out of it. At the very least, one should not be able to have it both ways. One should not, with a modicum of self-respect, quote Morrison and Baldwin at every turn but then, faced with the sort of injustice with which so much of their work contends, suddenly retreat into descriptions of whatever it is the finches are doing.”