Jean McEwan – Visual Artist, Organiser and Facilitator

‏Create Connect Make is a year-long creative action research project with Jean McEwan, arts organisation The Leap  and Keighley Library to develop and test new creative ideas and activities with communities in Keighley.

The project began in Autumn 2021 and through collaboration between Library staff and volunteers with local people and artists, aims to strengthen and showcase partnerships, and empower local people to lead on cultural events and activities.

Find out more about the Creative Journaling Club here

“When we see things like shadows, colour, leaves. We listen to things, really simple things; water, birds, waterfalls. We notice more things.”

For 18 months, To Wander is to Adventure took place in Oastler Market, Bradford, exploring its spaces and making connections with its communities.

In 2020, the project was adapted to continue over Zoom, where a new group of participants were introduced to mindfulness, mindful walking techniques and creative practices.

In early 2021, the group were supported to co-create digital mindfulness resources to share their experiences and learning with others, as well as building their skills in creating and leading their own creative mindful activities.

In 2022, the group met online and in person for seasonal walks in nature together to further develop their skills and experience.

Visit the To Wander is To Adventure project page

Jean has been working with participatory research project Changing Realities (previously Covid Realities) to support zine making since 2021.

Covid Realities was a national research project working alongside parents and carers to share experiences of life on a low-income during Covid-19, developing ideas together for what needs to change and why.
Changing Realities is a collaboration between parents and carers, researchers at the University of York, and Child Poverty Action Group, coming together to share experiences of life on a low-income in the UK and to make change happen.

Zine making has been a space to creatively explore lived experiences, and to communicate what needs to change and why.
Jean has worked with participants, research team and close colleagues to collectively make the following zines shown below.

‘Doing It Together: An (un) guide to making zines with people’

This shares our learnings about using zine-making as part of the Covid Realities research. It includes reflections and insights from participants and researchers from the project as other zine makers who we have learned from.
Read the zine online here.

Read a blog post from Jean about her experiences of making the zines with Covid Realities here. 

Jean has been working with Impressions Gallery on Fast Forward: Women in Photography a photography mentoring programme designed to develop the skills and confidence of eight women from refugee backgrounds, empowering them to use photography to tell stories about their own lives.

Jean supported the women to make zines, playfully collaging their family photographs with text. Each created a colourful zine with a personal story that connected the past to their present lives.

The women went on to develop their photography skills with support and mentoring from acclaimed photographers Carolyn Mendelsohn, Arpita Shah, Maryam Wahid, and Anne McNeill and Jane Hiley from Impressions.

The photographs the women made and images from their zines feature in Putting Ourselves in the Picture a new hardback publication with creative writing produced by the group, alongside work created by fourteen other women working with project partners across the UK.

The original zines are being exhibited at the Fast Forward: Women in Photography exhibition ‘Headstrong: Women and Empowerment’  at the Centre for British Photography in London from 26.01.2023 to 30.04.2023.

Find out more about the project and the book here