The Urgency of the Unseen

A Blade of Grass
January 2015

Written just prior to Raicovich assuming the role of director at the Queens Museum, this essay is a reflection of what role art and museums can play in society. She concludes, “It is up to institutions like the Queens Museum to enact and reflect the shifting patterns that describe points on the arc of our cultural moment. And just as bell hooks insists that we “open our minds and hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions…enabl[ing] transgressions—a movement against and beyond boundaries,” places like the Queens Museum must create spaces, exhibitions, and programs to question and explore that which has been excluded and disregarded, and for inspiration and beauty in all its manifestations. Within this web, we may find our liberation.”

Of Methyl Groups and Memory

The Enemy Reader
2014–2015

“I cannot bear to leave good tomatoes, nor anything else, on my plate. I’m not really hungry anymore, but I’m compelled by a force greater than biology, a voice pleading to leave nothing behind. I’m convinced it is my genes, the impact of my father’s, my grandparents’ experiences. The ghosts of their hardships emerge as I cringe seeing four long-cooked Italian flat beans, or two slices of glorious summer tomato, slide into the garbage. That one last bite of something, the ghosts say, ‘Eat it, eat it, don’t let it go to waste!’ Or, ‘Save it, you can mix it with ceci and scallions tomorrow. It will still be good. Just don’t throw it away, for goodness sake!’”

A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties

Publication Studio
July 2014

A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties (Publication Studio, 2014) was borne out of spam received over a period of several months. These emails circumvented spam filters by including odd texts beneath image-based ads for Viagra, Cialis and penis enlargement. As the same proper names continually surfaced, it seemed likely that these excerpts were taken from a longer text. In fact, they were lifted from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. These bits of text, once a Dickens novel, are reworked, strung together, and augmented to create a spy-story/melodramatic romance novel.