Support Your Local Girl Gang: Electric Pussy, an Art Community/Platform for Girls by Girls

01.30.2015 at 12:49

Editor’s Note: One of the most exciting things of 2015 so far has been discovering the Electric Pussy tumblr, described as “una comunidad/plataforma para exponer el trabajo de chicas,” that has grabbed our eyeballs by the… well, balls. Part digital gallery, part girls club, it has been a constant source of beautiful, well-curated work that is putting on for las morras in a major way. We talked to creator Andrea Villalón to get the scoop about how it started and who to know in this girl gang takeover.

When I first thought of Electric Pussy I never thought of it as a “collective” (I didn’t even come up with the name Electric Pussy), I thought about the girls I knew that were making beautiful things and how much they inspire me. These are girls I’d been following for a couple of years on their separate blogs, and I thought it would be great if there was a space where they could all join together, not because they make the same things, but because we had something in common.

I used to play in an all-girl band, and I remember I once thought “when I move to México city, there’ll be tons of girl bands.” But when I finally moved, I found out that there are just a few, I can actually count them on one hand. This doesn’t happen only in music, but in a lot of disciplines, and sometimes the real problem is that there are girls doing lots of things but they don’t have enough exposure; so I thought it would be great if there was a platform that empowered and inspired girls.

My whole life I’ve seen how complex relationships between girls are, but I always remember this documentary called “The Punk Singer” where Kathleen Hannah said how she used to feel misunderstood and how she’d hit a point where people wouldn’t back her vision – but then she’d think: “women, women will believe me.”

I wrote everyone a message where I explained my concept, I told them it was basically a platform for them to show their work, they send me their work and they get published once or twice a week, but it was also a “space” for us girls to help each other.

We’re ALL really different in what we do, but at the end of the day we’re all trying to do the same thing. We’re all studying, working, creating, trying to get our work out there, trying to pay rent doing the things we love to do. We can all relate to that.

I sent the message to 15 girls approximately, some of this girls I only knew via Facebook or Instagram, and I was really nervous because I was asking them to take a leap of faith and lend me their work for a project that may or may not work.

Surprisingly, the majority said yes, some of them even sent me really cute messages where they told me they were totally in and that I could count on them. Carla Escareño said “support your local girl gang” and I loved it, I even started using that as a hashtag.

In less than a week 20 girls have joined Electric Pussy, we’re on Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.