Zoe Mendelson

Artist Statement

Zoe Mendelson is a nonfiction writer trying to make people laugh, learn, care, and feel powerful. Her work has covered topics from architecture to anuses, from dating to drones. For the last six years her work has primarily focused on the “female” body, how knowledge about it has historically been produced, and how gender narratives influence science and our experience of bodies and the world. Her work combines obsessive research, enormous bibliographies, and excessive citations with utter and maximal honesty. Life is scary, laughter heals, and people learn more when they are having fun. But also, Mendelson aims to teach her readers to expect citations, look at who funded the research, sniff out assumptions in study designs, and consider a whole informational landscape rather than look for neat answers. She works to equip people both with knowledge and the ability to make knowledge more accessible to themselves.

My book, Pussypedia: a Comprehensive Guide, published by Hachette, 2021

Bio

Zoe Mendelson is a writer, researcher, and information designer. She is the co-founder and editor of the Webby-winning, bi-lingual, inclusive, illustrated encyclopedia Pussypedia.net and the author of Pussypedia: A Comprehensive Guide. Her projects, which span from a data narrative about drones to a crowdsourced heartbreak charting initiative, to an official emoji pack for Mexico City, have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The BBC, PBS, Buzzfeed, and Vice. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, WIRED, Print, Slate, The Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. She is currently writing a newsletter called How to Have Fun in the Apocalypse. Zoe holds a BA from Barnard College of Columbia University. She has been based in Mexico City for 9 years.

youngzo.com