Emma Bee Bernstein, a 23-year-old feminist photographer, died a couple of weeks ago. Jess and I both had the privilege of meeting her through her innovative project GIRLDrive, which we've blogged about previously. Emma and partner-in-crime, Nona Willis Aronowitz, hit the road and interviewed and photographed young women talking about their relationship to feminism. It morphed into a book which will be released on Seal Press in the near future. Read more about both Emma and Nona here.
I met Emma only twice, but her presence left a real impression on me. She had a quality of wild aliveness--animated about philosophy and art, dramatic about the ins and outs of her young, exciting life, literally bursting. She was beautiful, charismatic, dressed like a person who understood the playful capacity inherent in fashion, who liked to subvert people's expectations about appropriateness or trendiness. The last time I saw her and Nona, Emma had just read my book, and showered me with the most generous and seemingly authentic praise. I remember leaving the meeting feeling ten feet tall. Emma, this bright young engaged artist, had called me a philosopher. I felt like my words were important.
I can only imagine that Emma made a lot of people feel this way--like their presence, their take on the world (feminism, art, music), their words, were deeply important. I love her and Nona's project because it defies so many people's expectations about the young and cynical. It asserts that, indeed, young women are still interested in the open road, in communing face-to-face with strangers and friends alike, in intellectual journeys, in this transformative and unfinished movement called feminism.
She wrote the following, when asked to respond to the idea of intergenerational feminism for a panel at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art:
There is good news: young women artists are revolutionary. They are making works that deal fervently with gender and sexuality, that deconstruct beauty standards, that unveil the veiled. They revel in the grotesque, the cosmetic, celebrity culture. They poke fun at themselves. They show us their obsession with the "feminine", but it is pop essentialism, deadpan gender. They do not care if you think they are vapid sluts, clad in designer trends. They look with a female gaze, they have autonomy, they are not marionettes. They are, indeed, artists who are feminists. Young women thinkers will say they are gender revolutionary before they are feminist-identified, and just as they seek to explode the binaries of sex, they mix-media and ideology, creating a patchwork of consciousness that is as thoroughly contemporary as it is politically feminist.
I like to think of her reading those words. That they were about "young women"--abstractly speaking--but, most specifically, about herself. She was that revolutionary, that joker, that deconstructer, that unapologetic sexual being, that autonomous seer, that binary exploder, that conscious, political feminist theorist and activist. She was that friend. That daughter. That sister. That artist. That innovator.
Emma ended her own life. It's almost impossible for me conceive of someone that alive now being dead. But I have to believe that she needed release in some profound way that even her beautiful family and friends, that even her relationship to art and feminism, couldn't provide. It's not romantic. It's unacceptable. It's also a reminder that life is a fragile, fragile thing, a choice that we each make every single day. When Emma was alive, she made the choice fiercely and with her whole being. I thank her for the lesson.
For New Yorkers, there will be a service on Wednesday, December 31st at 10:30 am, at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel at 630 Amsterdam Ave (at 91st Street).
More links:
Nona's take
her dad's take
photographs of Emma
Emma's photographs
her whole essay on intergenerational feminism
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i hope you have found a happier place, Emma.
Feeling a little guilty about not being to Feministing over the holidays, I log in to find this as the headline. Shivers ran down my spine, as my name, too, is Emma. In fact, my first name and middle initial are 'Emma B'.
I never heard of her before now, but I wish I had. Perhaps just fuelled by the similarities of name and age (she's just 10 months older than I) and appearance (I too have light skin and long dark hair), but I wish I'd had a chance to try and make some kind of connection with her.
Emma, I hope you've found peace. I am proud to share your name and carry on the tradition of Strong Emma's through history.
From Emma
In the past few years suicide has effected my life more than I ever though it would. My thoughts are with her family and friends. Tragedies like this are so hard to understand.
as a photographer, i'm sad that i hadn't seen her wonderful work before this post, and more saddened to hear of this tragedy.
"It's not romantic. It's unacceptable."
Yes, thank you for writing that. I can never understand why so many people seem to paint suicide as a "romantic" or "cool" way to go. It's such a painful awful thing, both for the people who loved the person and for the person who commits the act. As someone who has very seriously considered suicide, I can tell you it takes being in such an unbelievably painful lonely place to consider it. It's just so sad, always. I didn't know this young woman, wasn't even familiar with her work, but I am very saddened by her death. My thoughts are with the people who miss her.
I agree. It's so tragic that a young woman so apparently full of hope and action would feel the need to end her own life, even as she was fighting to better the lives of others. As a suicide survivor (a very dear friend of mine took his life in June '06), my prayers and thoughts go out to the family and friends of Emma, whose suffering I can relate to.
I hope that Emma has found peace, and that those who loved her (and love her still) can find solace in the work that she did in her all-too-brief lifetime.
Thank you for the post, Courtney; I also had not heard of her previously, but the quote you posted about young women artists was wonderful! Much of its sentiment could be transposed to things unrelated to the art world, which I dig.
jj - Thank you for sharing some of your story. It's not easy, but I like how this blog feels like a safe place to be brave and share such things. I can only hope we can bring suicide and mental illness more into the light, discuss them, and strip away the stigma(s) attached so we can help those who need it and hold those up who have lost loved ones. I'm currently reading "The Noonday Demon" and it is helping me on numerous levels, and I'm only a few dozen pages in!
I feel fortunate that I'm no longer afraid or ashamed to ask for help. /end intense stuff.
Apologies, I realize it was presumptuous of me to imply suicides are all due to mental illness.
It makes you wonder why. It might be important.
this is very sad.
www.suicidehotlines.com has a list of hotline numbers to call if you or someone you know is distressed enough that they may hurt themself or someone else.
I knew Emma when we were kids. She was always way ahead of the curve and did everything light years before the rest of us. I feel like it was only last week that I was sitting in her closet of a bedroom (walls covered in pictures, magazine cutouts, posters, etc) and listening to Sleater-Kinney. We lost touch, but my thoughts are with her family especially her adorable brother Felix, who Emma always loved so dearly.
I was at camp at the same time as Emma -- this news is still so weird to me.
As a side note, neither of the other links mention explicitly that she took her own life...are we sure the family wanted that released?