Dear LAZAABB Vendors, Promotional Sponsors, and Bazaar Attendees, 

We have received an open letter in opposition to LAZAABB. We wanted to let you know that we are aware of the situation, and that we are looking forward to providing a great weekend with the spirit of independent ideas and healthy communities. We would like to provide you with our public statement, for your consideration:

"Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish."

~ William Blake, poet, painter, printmaker, and mystic.

This debate pivots around the fundamental belief of what exposure to the arts brings - does it bring disempowerment or empowerment? 

There is an important difference between imposition and invitation within a cultural offering - it is our position that the organizers making demands to boycott our zine bazaar are practicing imposition rather than invitation, and are ironically promoting a culture of hate, which is not healthy for any community. 

We believe that exposure to poetry, drawing, performance, and all forms of shared intimacy, is an invitation to explore the undiscovered potentials of ourselves, fostering human connection, healing, and sparking the imagination to wonder what is possible of our own lives. That is empowerment. 

The attempt to cultivate independent cultural exchange should be defended rather than dismantled, and it is shameful to demand the restriction of expression and exposure to the arts, and arts education. Curtailing freedom of expression is a form of control and aggression. That is disempowerment. 

We created the Los Angeles Zine and Art Book Bazaar to share our love of art and language, sensical and nonsensical, with the place we call home. It is our hope to invite empowerment for all the multi-faceted and magical communities of Los Angeles at LAZAABB. 

With the belief that Art, Words, and Magic can all be one, 

Robert and Josh