Bikini Kill is an American punk rock band formed in Olympia, Washington, in October 1990. The group originally consisted of singer and songwriter Kathleen Hanna, guitarist Billy Karren, bassist Kathi Wilcox, and drummer Tobi Vail.
Kathleen Hanna is an American singer, musician and pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer. In the early-to-mid-1990s, she was the lead singer of feminist punk band Bikini Kill, and then fronted the electronic rock band Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 2010, she has recorded as The Julie Ruin.
Tobi Celeste Vail is an American independent musician, music critic and feminist activist from Olympia, Washington. She was a central figure in the riot grrl scene—she coined the spelling of "grrl"—and she started the zine Jigsaw. A drummer, guitarist and singer, she was a founding member of the band Bikini Kill. Vail has collaborated in several other bands figuring in the Olympia music scene. Vail writes for eMusic.
Johanna Rachel Fateman is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the post-punk rock band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson.
Sta-Prest was a multi-racial queercore and riot grrrl band from San Francisco that was active in the 1990s. The group members included Aloofah and D.M. Feelings.
Mr. Lady Records was a San Francisco-based lesbian-feminist independent record label and video art distributor. Artists on the label included Le Tigre and The Butchies. OutSmart magazine noted that Mr. Lady was "queercore's strongest label."
Donna Dresch is an American punk rock musician, perhaps best known as founder, guitarist and bass guitarist of Team Dresch.
Pussy Whipped is the debut studio album by American punk rock band Bikini Kill. It was released on Kill Rock Stars on October 26, 1993.
Sharon Ann Cheslow is an American musician, composer, artist, writer, photographer, educator, and archivist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band. She has since become an accomplished artist who works between different mediums, mostly sound-based.
Lucy Thane is a British documentary filmmaker, event producer and performer, living in Folkestone. Her films include It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK (1993) and She's Real (1997).
K8 Hardy is an American artist and filmmaker. Hardy's work spans painting, sculpture, video, and photography and her work has been exhibited internationally at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, Tensta Konsthalle, Karma International, and the Dallas Contemporary. Hardy's work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. She is a founding member of the queer feminist artist collective and journal LTTR. She lives and works in New York, New York.
Jen Smith is an artist, musician, zine editor, and activist from the United States. Smith is credited with being the inspiration behind the term riot grrrl and being one of the architects of the movement.
The Miller ICA at Carnegie Mellon University is the contemporary art gallery of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Sini Anderson is an American film director, producer, performance artist, choreographer, dancer and poet, from Chicago, Illinois. Anderson is widely known for directing The Punk Singer (2013), a documentary about riot grrrl musician Kathleen Hanna's legacy and experience with late-stage Lyme disease.
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington, and the greater Pacific Northwest, and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. A subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics, it is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less commonly for women.
Becca Albee is an American musician and visual artist who was a founding member of the band Excuse 17, which was an early pioneer in the riot grrrl and third-wave feminism movements. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
The Punk Singer is a 2013 documentary film about feminist singer Kathleen Hanna who fronted the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and who was a central figure in the riot grrrl movement. Directed by filmmaker Sini Anderson and produced by Anderson and Tamra Davis, the film's title is taken from the Julie Ruin song "The Punk Singer", from Hanna's 1998 solo effort.
Ginger Brooks Takahashi is an American artist based in Brooklyn, New York, and North Braddock, Pennsylvania. A self-identified “punk,” Takahashi grew up in Oregon. She co-founded the feminist genderqueer collective and journal LTTR and the Mobilivre project, a touring exhibition and library. She was also a member of MEN (band). Her work consists of a collaborative project-based practice. Takahashi is currently an adjunct professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.
Ramdasha Bikceem is an American writer, singer, and musician. She published the pioneering riot grrrl zine GUNK in the early 1990s, which explored intersections of race and gender in punk and skateboarding.
Alien She was an art exhibition organized by the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon with support from Vox Populi, funded by grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia and curated by Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss, both of whom are former Riot Grrls. Alien She was the first art exhibition to examine the impact the riot grrrl musical movement had on the artists and cultural producers of today. The exhibition's title refers to a Bikini Kill song of the same name.
