Leeds Zine Fair on Sunday, including: remembering who we are - the zine

On Sunday it's Leeds Zine Fair (see their website for all the details: http://leedszinefair.footprinters.co.uk/index.php/whats-on )

There's oodles of really great stuff going on all day (congratulations to Footprint for co-ordinating everything), and my involvement will be the following:

I'm debuting issue #4 of 'Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational Women' zine! Come and buy a copy!

I'm running the individual zine table on the day for anyone to bring along zines for us to sell on your behalf (seriously, bring me your zines!)

There is going to be an exhibition up all day of 'Posters Of Inspirational European Women: Taken from issues 1-4 of the zine 'Shape & Situate'

PLUS

Myself and Lindsay/Pivo are running the following workshop:

Remembering Who We Are with Melanie Maddison and Lindsay Starbuck – exploring artistic and creative sociopolitical memory. A talk, resource archive and participatory zine-making workshop.
We would like to use the Leeds Zine Fair as an opportunity to have a conversation about the role, importance, and act of creative sociopolitical history projects. We will be hosting a collection of resources from social history art, poster and zine projects for everyone to explore. Inspirational work will be featured from projects such as: Celebrate People’s History, Occuprint, Inspired Agitators, Dead Feminists, Peops, Shape & Situate, Caged Bird Club, Firebrands: Portraits of the Americas, plus many more.
Melanie and Lindsay will give a short talk/discussion about their work with ‘Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational European Women’ and Caged Bird Club that will touch on:

Remembering and celebrating individual’s lives and actions via creative/art projects;
How individual’s lives have been mis/represented in our communities via conventional history;
Moving away from a reliance on the existence (or non-existence) of mainstream dominant written narratives about 'history';
Memory as a political tool; and
Using art to inspire others to join us in creating change in the world.

We’ll also be making a collective zine in line with the work shown and discussed. We will ask participants to share a unique story of a formative event or influential person in their life. We want to hear, see and share examples of moments that have shaped or are shaping people's political values and have made them into who they are today. The finished zine, featuring highlights of what is produced on the day, will be available as a free/copyleft downloadable PDF in 2013.

Sunday will be the launch day for our call-for-contributions for this new zine - see the image below for all the details. We'll be seeking contributions all day on Sunday, so feel free to come prepared with ideas to get involved, but equally the call-for-submissions is open until January.

Click on the images to make them a bit bigger

deviant type

From my inbox, from Annah ♥...

Deviant Type is a new, independent press project dedicated to publishing transgressive, powerful literature written by queer, POC, and/or working class & poor artists. Our goal is to actively seek out and distribute poetry, creative non-fiction, lyric essays, graphic novels, zine collections, and fiction with non-traditional narratives (whether in form or content).

Simply put, our aim is to distribute literature that expresses the true complexity of being alive and the possibilities for personal and social change through literary art.

Deviant Type is a cultural hijacking, a reclamation of independent print-media, and a fearless act of literacy/art activism!

We need your support in order to get this project up & off the ground http://www.indiegogo.com/devianttype

We hope to release our first book, Inbetweenland, by Jacks Ashley McNamara (co-founder of the Icarus Project http://theicarusproject.net/), on March 1st, 2013. For a full description about this book and it's author, see http://devianttype.net/bookstitles

Our goal is to raise $5,000 in the next 60 days, purely through community-funded support. We believe that this is possible- we believe that this is a project that will be of long term benefit to us all, readers and writers alike. Lets make this happen together!

If you're able to donate to our start-up fund, or if you know other folx who might (family members, colleagues, coworkers, etc), click here or please pass this link on http://www.indiegogo.com/devianttype

PS- there are lots of great perks to choose from when you make a donation (and more perks TBA)

With Love, Revolt, & Solidarity through Archive,
The Deviant Type Team

Shape & Situate exhibition set to hit London

The exhibition: Posters Of Inspirational European Women, taken from the zine 'Shape & Situate' is having a month-long residency at Space Station 65 gallery in London from December 2012 to January 2013!!

Tentative, early information can be found on SS65's newsletter

More details of the exhibition, and news of events occurring during the residency coming soon.

keeping busy

women and the graphic novel

From my inbox...

'Women and the Graphic Novel', a panel discussion co-ordinated by Space Station 65 as part of the London Art Book Fair at Whitechapel Gallery is now available to download as a podcast:

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/laydeez-do-podcasts/id418382224
Blog: http://laydeezdopodcasts.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/who-is-ana-mendieta/

Featuring Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman, founders of graphic novel forum Laydeez do Comics and Christine Redfern, co-creator of 'Who is Ana Mendieta?'

Introduced by Space Station Sixty Five directors Jo David and Rachael House.
(Recorded by Whitechapel Gallery, edited by Alex Fitch)
Running time: 56:19 / recorded 22/09/12

The exhibition of original drawings from 'Who is Ana Mendieta?' continues in AIRLOCK, our 2nd gallery space at SS65 in Kennington until 4th November. Open Thurs-Sundays.

poor lass zine

From my inbox, by my good pals Em Ledger & Seleena Daye:

POOR LASS ZINE NEEDS YOU!

Poor la$$es we need you!

Are you an awesome working class grrrl who gets out there, makes do and mends, triumphs over adversity and gets some serious shit done?

Wanna get positive, fierce and precious in equal measures in a new collective zine?

If yes to the above, then we need you.

We’re two working class northern lasses who’ve been involved in the riot grrrl/ DIY queer punk scene for a while who are a little bit sick of being talked about like we don’t exist, especially when we’re in the same room (that’s right Ladyfest, best believe!) We wanna tell our OWN stories, with our OWN voices, in our OWN accents and dialogues and at our OWN academic levels.

We want to give people like us a voice that is so often unheard in our communities. To tell and share our stories, to smash stereotypes and pre-conceived ideas.

So what we’re looking for is your story, whatever way you want to tell it, whatever focus you want to give to it. Just be honest; none of us are victims, none of us are looking for sympathy, shit happens and we have little choice other than to get on with it. Those things make us the super strong powerful folks we are today!

This is going to be a series with running themes each issue such as; educations, jobs, family etc. If you wanna get involved, email us with a mini bio and any particular angles you like to take or discuss and we’ll get crackin’ with issue one!

Email us on poorlasszine@gmail.com Feel free to share this and tag anyone you think may be interested!

Thanks

Em and Seleena

ana albero interview on Pikaland

My interview with the wonderful Ana Albero went up on the Pikaland website this week. Thanks Ana!

http://pikaland.com/2012/10/03/interview-ana-albero

'Remembering Who We Are: Exploring artistic and creative sociopolitical memory

Myself and Lindsay Starbuck are running a workshop at Leeds Zine Fair on November 4th.

The workshop is set to look at Social history art and zine projects, & is going to be called 'Remembering Who We Are: Exploring artistic and creative sociopolitical memory'. We've got a huge bunch of poster/art/zine resources to show-and-tell/exhibit at the Fair.

We also want your help to start to make a social history zine on the day too, capturing examples of moments that have shaped our individual political values. More updates on all of this soon.

For more info on what else is going on on the day, head over to http://leedszinefair.footprinters.co.uk