Zine making with Covid Realities
6 JULY 2022
Did you know July is International Zine Month?
I’m lucky to be spending a good chunk of the month doing lots of zine activities with the Covid Realities project. Covid Realities is a national research project which has been doing participatory online research during the pandemic with parents and carers living on a low-income.
I have been working with the project since early 2021 to support zinemaking with participants and researchers as part of this work.
Last year we made a collective zine to creatively explore experiences of living through the pandemic on a low income, which included individual stories as well as acting as a collective voice for what needs to change in the future and why. You can read it here.
This summer I’m delighted to be back with Covid Realities to facilitate more zine making, supported by fellow participatory artists Catherine Cartwright and Ros Frazer.
We’re working with participants, researchers and collaborators to make a collective zine documenting what the methods used in the project – what has been done and how it has been done. As well as a space for people involved in the project to reflect together, the zine is also a way of sharing our learning with other researchers and organisations, so that they feel more confident adopting similar approaches.
I’m also facilitating two zine making sessions for participatory researchers alongside the team. These workshops will provide a space to reflect on the process of doing participatory work, and to discuss the ethical and methodological issues such work involves, with zine-making as the medium. There will be one in person session (in York on 18th July) and one online session (over Zoom on 21st July).
Places are free but booking is essential. Attendees on the online workshop will receive a bespoke zine pack. There are some travel bursaries available for the in person session.
More information and booking details are available at Covid Realities
And finally, along with the team, I’m putting together a zine guide (or an ‘unguide’ as I’m beginning to think of it) to share how we have worked with zines on Covid Realities and learning we can pass on to others who are interested in using zines as a way to connect, share and learn with others.
Zines are shared conversations, so it feels right that this guide will also include contributions from other zinemakers to include their knowledge and insights too.
