The L Word inspires chemical-free products with Sappho Cosmetics

On a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Jennifer Beals and Mia Kirshner met in a loft near Hastings and Clark streets in East Vancouver. The stars of The L Word weren’t there to shoot a steamy scene for the show’s sixth season. Instead, the gorgeous brunettes were celebrating the launch of Sappho Cosmetics (www.sapphocosmetics.com), a new chemical-free line from the show’s makeup artist, JoAnn Fowler, who uses this loft space as unofficial headquarters.

The Emmy-nominated Fowler, who could pass for Judi Dench’s younger sister, credits Beals and Kirshner for prompting her to start Sappho. “For a long time, I didn’t think the world needed another makeup line,” she says. That all changed when she discovered research on the effects of chemicals in cosmetic products.
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Mia on Causecast.org

Please visit Causecast.org to read Mia’s blog entries with even more information about ‘I Live Here’ including photos, trailers and also the new I Live Here Foundation that she has set up in order to help fund creative writing programs in the areas she and her partners have visited. If you would like to donate to the foundation, you can do so through Causecast.org or through the official I Live Here website.

Thank you to Ryan at causecast.org for making this post possible.

Please be advised that the below trailers for the book contain some disturbing images and should be viewed with caution.
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Global Voices: Mia Kirshner’s I Live Here

Actress Mia Kirshner is probably best known for her role on the Showtime drama The L Word, but for the past several years, she’s been focusing her creative energies on the people that nobody seems to notice: women and children around the world who have been displaced, silenced and forgotten. Over the past few years, 33-year-old Kirshner has traveled to some of the most desolate and dangerous countries in the world to see and meet some of the most victimized people, in hopes of bringing the world’s attention to their plight.

One part of her commitment to bringing attention to the world of global refugees is I Live Here, an unusual collaborative graphic work that will be published by Pantheon in October. A mixed media combination of comics, photos, journals and travelogues, I Live Here is a four-segment book collection, with each section–—and each artist—focused on the personal and social trauma of displaced people in a different country. Much acclaimed comics journalist Joe Sacco, creator of Palestine, produces a graphic novel that examines war-torn Ingushetia, Chechnya; comics memoirist Phoebe Gloeckner examines the serial killing of women in Juarez, Mexico; French-Algerian artist Kamel Khélif surveys ethnic killing in Burma and Thailand; and finally, there’s a children’s story by author J.B. McKinnon and artist Julie Morstad that tackles the AIDS epidemic the African country of Malawi. Other writer-contributors include Chris Abani, nonfiction writer Karen Connelly and short story writer Lauren Kirschner.
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New ‘I Live Here’ Information and photos

I received an email from a publicist from Pantheon earlier tonight with the following information and photos pertaining to I Live Here and wanted to share them with you guys. I cannot wait for the release of this book!

I LIVE HERE (Pantheon Books/October 14, 2008/$29.95) is a visually stunning paper documentary, in which the lives of refugees and displaced people become at once personal and universal. It is a raw and intimate journey to crises in four corners of the world: war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico, and AIDS in Malawi.

The voices we encounter are those of displaced women and children, told in their own words or by noted writers and artists, including Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner, Chris Abani, and many others. Threaded throughout these accounts is Mia Kirshner’s intimate travel narrative, brought vividly to life in collaboration with writer J.B. MacKinnon and designers Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons.

This groundbreaking book is but one element of a larger project known as the I Live Here Foundation, committed to establishing creative writing programs for marginalized people. Further information is available at i-live-here.com.