Jan Descartes (she/her) is an artist, writer, educator, and curator, currently living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the graduate of Syracuse University (BA), Carnegie Mellon University (MFA) and CUNY Graduate Center (MLS). She is the co-curator of
Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression and Representation in Comic Art, co-creator of
Heartland Comic, a collective member of
Pop Gym, and a curator at
Booklyn, Inc. Jan’s current art practice includes comics, zines, painting, and printing and is concerned with memory, empathy, personal subjectivity, and open accessibility.
Jan facilitates comic/zine workshops and self-defense workshops. She created the online comics instructional resource
Drawing Through the Walls, which support comics creation as a method to share experiences of incarceration and its damaging effects on community. Jan co-authored “Feminist Curating with Our Comics, Ourselves” in the text
Comics and Critical Librarianship: Reframing the Narrative in Academic Libraries.
In Collection:
THE NEW SCHOOL LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES
Mask UpUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Mask Up