mixed-class anthology, call for submissions

From my inbox...


http://augustpoemsongforliberation.wordpress.com/invitation/mixed-class-anthology/

Mixed-Class Anthology

>>>> Call for Submissions <<<<

 

Mixed-Class:

Because Sometimes You Gotta Piece it All Together

• What if we inhabit multiple class experiences – in our families, and throughout our lives?
• How do race, disability, migration, gender, sexuality, and more mediate our mixed-classed experiences? How do we make sense of our messy, sometimes contradictory experiences of class?
• How do we inherit and navigate mixed-class ancestries, histories, and genealogies meeting in our lifetime?

Seeking more connection around being mixed-class, the two of us came together with the vision of gathering stories of people in our communities who identify and resonate with a mixed-class experience.

We know that being mixed-class can be hard to make sense of. Some of us grew up with parents and families with more than one class reality, and many of us have had shifting access to money and resources due to changing relationships (i.e. partnership, co-parenting, and divorce), inheritance, chronic illness, migration, un/employment, and other factors. Some of us grew up poor or working-class, and have had more class privilege in our adult lives; while others of us grew up middle or owning class, and have also had changing experiences of class. Amid all of this we can retain class privilege, or continue to not have it.

 

The root of this project feels deeply personal and about healing. We hope to maintain this as we invite writings and visions grounded in personal experience. Through this story-telling, we hope to broaden conversations about class as a static identity category, while honoring the very real violence of capitalism, particularly for cash poor communities in the US and around the world.

 

>> The Anthology <<

 

We hope to gather the experiences of people who resonate with being mixed-class to build community and story-tell with each other.

We welcome personal essays and reflections, critical essays, letters, conversations/interviews, poems, other genres/mixed-genres, and printable black and white 2-D images! In its initial phase, we plan to self-publish and distribute this collection zine/chapbook-style, and may pursue publishers!

We envision a collection that includes contributors who hold commitments to challenging white supremacy, settler colonialism, ableism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy and transmisogyny; and to growing our practice towards collective liberation.

 

Some places where our lives have intersected with being mixed-class include:

• Parents from different class/backgrounds and relationships with families of origin
• Living with intergenerational trauma in our families
• Inheriting and/or building mixed-class, mixed-ability, and/or multiracial family
• Cultivating cultures of abundance, interdependence, and resource sharing
• Cross-class relationships and/or organizing
• Geography, gentrification, mobility, and/or class
• Heteropatriarchy, gender, class, and our mixed-class experiences
• Wellness, dis/ability, class, and our mixed-class experiences
• Addiction and mental health
• Transnational migration, culture, and class
• Raising mixed-class children, and/or cross-class adoption/foster care
• The list goes on…!

Submit pieces to: mixed.class.anthology@gmail.com

 

>> Up to 3 single-spaced pages. Please also include a brief bio of yourself.

Contact us with any questions, comments, ideas, or if you would like to contribute a longer piece!

Deadline: July 15, 2013

 

About your co-editors:

We live in the United States, and both grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area on stolen Indigenous land. We want to acknowledge that we are part of the ongoing settlement and occupation of Indigenous nations in the places we have lived.

 

Savannah is a white, mixed-class cisgender queer/femme settler, born and raised fourth-generation on the occupied Ohlone and Miwok lands known as the Bay Area. I have a mixed, at times divergent experience of class, have class privilege, and relate to having a mixed-class background. Some of the ways this has played out in my life include being separated from my (raised-poor) working-class Mom for periods of time as a pre/teen due to a bitter, seven-year divorce from my abusive owning-class/rich Dad, and having moved over 15 times before high school graduation. I also have had some access to unearned/inherited wealth, and don’t have debt or college loans. I am committed to moving towards interdependence, resource-sharing, and community reparations (props to POOR Magazine’s poverty scholarship for this framework). I also think a lot about challenging masculinism as I practice growing strategies that center wholeness, emotional wisdom, storytelling, sensuality, and celebration as transformative tools for liberation. I envision this project as a healing tool for myself, and hope that it can be that for others as well. This fall, I’m gonna start a PhD program at UCLA where I plan to research queer settler relationships to space and place in the US.

 

Vanessa is a tender, freedom-loving heart born to Chinese-descent Mandarin-speaking immigrant parents in Berkeley, California in the early 1980s. Primarily raised by my mom here in the States, I grew up with education, class, and ability privilege in a majority white, upper middle class neighborhood. With my mom working days and nights, many of the hetero two-parent, vacationing lifestyles around us didn’t reflect our realities at home. We later moved more solidly into an immigrant middle class, and I began to build bridges towards resource organizing across class and the varied networks of support and accountability in my life and cultural work. I’ve since been on a journey befriending chronic illness; through becoming disabled, my access to money has continued to evolve in needing to access food stamps and low-income services, and invite community support to sustain my wellness, livelihood, and practice. Within these ebbs and flows, I wholeheartedly live and love from the belief that poetry is not a luxury — “For within structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive” (Audre Lorde); for when we fearlessly invite the vulnerability necessary to grow loving ecologies from and with our courage hearts, we enable infinitely increased potential for transformative magic.

http://augustpoemsongforliberation.wordpress.com/invitation/mixed-class-anthology/

remembering who we are website

  

http://rememberingzine.wordpress.com/

 

Lindsay Starbuck has made us a snazzy website for the Remembering Who We Are project/zine.

With the zine 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.

Check out the 'about' section to read more about where the project's coming from: http://rememberingzine.wordpress.com/about-2/

 

At this point, the website is a work in progress and we will be uploading all of the wonderful submissions we have already received in due course. What that also means is that we can accept new submissions forever (deadlines be gone) so that the website can grow and grow. Check out the submissions we've already put up, and the guidance for contributing your own page. We'd love to feature your stories and work.

So if you were hoping to send something but couldn't meet the old deadline, we now place no unnecessary demands on your time. If you were struggling to think of what you could write/draw about, perhaps have a look at the other submissions for inspiration on how to tell your own unique tale.
Thanks to everybody already on board and everybody who joins in from here on! 
Get pen to paper and share your stories with us. Also, please share it widely and encourage other people to get involved.

http://rememberingzine.wordpress.com/

Olivia Mew interview

My interview with artist Olivia Mew is online over at Pikaland today: http://www.pikaland.com/2013/06/06/artist-interview-olivia-mew/

Amongst other things, Olivia is the brains behind Stay Home Club: http://stayhomeclub.com/

you are a disgrace

Oh my!! The below is completely amazing, and totally makes me want to revisit the idea I once had of making a zine of conversations with our Mums.
Elisha's Mum sounds *amazing*!!


Elisha writes (via FB):

'This is how you make artists. With aggressive love.
This is an interview I did with my mum, and it sounds absolutely like her talking voice'

Mum: Do you remember that scathing letter I wrote to your teacher about failing one of your paintings?
Elisha: [laughs] What did it say?
Mum: The teacher had said that it was ugly. I wrote a memo that said: “My daughter may not be very good in art, but she put her heart and soul into that drawing, and do you have any idea how you have damaged her self-esteem? You are a disgrace.”


Read the full, amazing interview here: http://schoolmagazine.ca/2009/08/elim-interview/

caged bird club's ante posts

I forgot to link to these.
Here are Lindsay and Matthew's posts about the Remembering Who We Are exhibition at Ante Art 2013 in Shipley at the beginning of the month, and a round up of the other amazing stuff that went on at Ante over that weekend too (including Gee vaucher's amazing art and conversation).
Matthew's photos are amazing!

http://andsomeplyers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ante-2013-day-1.html

http://andsomeplyers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ante-2013-day-2.html (check out my pom-pom making hands; I got a bit obsessed - thanks Ellie!)

http://andsomeplyers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/ante-2013-city-boys-up-against-wall.html


(N.B. As a general rule of thumb, everything on Lindsay's blog is inspiring and hella-interesting, so while you're there, go ahead and read it all!)

ink now: posters collectives and art

Rachael and Jo from Space Station Sixty-Five are speaking about the Shape & Sitaute posters (amongst other fine things) at this event:

 

 

 

Ink Now: Posters, Collectives and Art

This is an evening of presentations and discussion about how posters have been used in different radical, political, feminist, collective and community settings. By looking at specific historical moments we hope to open up a conversation about radical ideas and collective practices in the contemporary art context.

Admission free and all welcome, but please register at:
http://inknowposters.eventbrite.com/

Suzy Mackie and Pru Stevenson, founding members of the See Red Women's Workshop Collective, which produced silkscreened feminist and community posters from c1974 up to the early 1990s, will show poster images and talk about why and how the collective was set up and the first 8 years.

Jess Baines (LSE) will be presenting her research on the history of late 20th century radical and community printing collectives and co-ops in the UK - including: poster collectives, service printers, typesetters and print resource centres. Jess is also a former Member of the See Red Womens Workshop

Dean Kenning (Kingston University and CSM) will be talking about the recent show at Portman Gallery: ‘Poster Production’ where he worked with art students from Morpeth School, Central St Martins and Reading University, and with several contemporary artists to produce posters based on different themes and according to various methods of working.

Rachael House and Jo David from artist run Space Station Sixty-Five on posters and archives in the art space, including poster-related shows such as 'Shape and Situate' 'Rachael will also talk about her recent exhibitions 'Feminist Disco' and 'A Space of Potential' which draw on feminist cultures'?

Chair: Anne Robinson (senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University and former member of See Red Womens Workshop)

Each of the speakers will make a 20 minute presentation followed by an open discussion with time for questions.

Email: anne.robinson@londonmet.ac.uk for further information

6.30-8.30pm, Tuesday 4th June
Refreshments available from 6pm
London Met University
41-47 Commercial Rd, E1

Supported by The Facility Centre for Creative Practice as Research, FSSH

neat project

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1601626698/tell-it-like-it-tiz-the-marie-smith-center-book?ref=live

Tell It Like It Tiz!

Oral histories (and more) in the form a comic zine (and now book project) about the seniors at the Marie Smith Center in Portland, Oregon.

Mab Graves interview on Pikaland

My interview with Indianapolis artist/painter Mab Graves is up on the Pikaland website today: http://www.pikaland.com/2013/05/10/artist-interview-mab-graves/

Remembering Who We Are, at Ante

http://www.ante-art.co.uk/2012/04/25/remembering-who-we-are/

REMEMBERING WHO WE ARE

To help celebrate and reclaim May Day, Melanie Maddison and Lindsay Starbuck will display an exhibition of work by various artists commemorating labour and workers’ movements, actions, and struggles. Included will be a selection of work from Shape and Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women, the Celebrate People’s History poster project, the Occuprint portfolio as well as two tapestries in homage to historical trade union banners ,and photographs.

The historical and commemorative art work will remind us how far we’ve come in the fight for employment rights and the work looking at contemporary issues can reassure us that despite the changes in the way workers are represented and able to organise, we are neither alone nor helpless to create change. We hope that both will inspire us in the struggles that we still face this May Day.


At Ante, this weekend, Kirkgate Centre, Shipley, West Yorkshire: http://www.ante-art.co.uk/

Empowerment in your pocket

Empowerment in your pocket
 
"We are seeking marginalizing, excluding and/or alienating questions and statements that you encounter and your strategies for dealing with them - in short, we need your answers to dumb questions and your reactions in these situations."
 
http://www.femoco2013.de/empowerment-in-your-pocket/empowerment-in-your-pocket-en/

What can history do?

What can history do? What does history mean to you? What does history mean to us? – Call for Contributions

"We want to use the pamphlet as a space to explore the practicalities of history making – for example running discussion and memory groups, oral history projects, grassroots archives (on and offline), exhibitions and other ways individuals and communities explore, recover and use history to understand their identities, where they live or the cultures they belong to."

http://feministarchivesouth.org.uk/what-can-history-do-what-does-history-mean-to-you-what-does-history-mean-to-us/?fb_source=pubv1



The Feminist Archive South have funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to create a pamphlet that explores how feminist, women’s and other radical histories shape lives, understa...ndings of social change, collective dreams, hopes, disappointments and imaginations.

The pamphlet will be published for the end of the Ellen Malos’ Archives project in September 2013. It will be distributed to schools, further education colleges and libraries in Bristol, the South West and further afield on request (we have limited budget for distribution but can provide free copies should you want some).

We invite people to explore these questions in whatever way they wish, but please do think about the question of what history can do, what it means to individuals and what it can possibly mean to communities, collectives or whatever other way you want to envision/ interrogate/ reconfigure/ think about ‘us.’

Contributions should be written in a non-specialist language as it is envisaged that a wide range of ages and backgrounds will read the pamphlet.

We want to use the pamphlet as a space to explore the practicalities of history making – for example running discussion and memory groups, oral history projects, grassroots archives (on and offline), exhibitions and other ways individuals and communities explore, recover and use history to understand their identities, where they live or the cultures they belong to.

If you work for a feminist or women’s archives, please consider a contribution that tells us about your collection – we plan to have a directory at the back which lists archives and libraries where people can find out about history.

You may also want to consider if digital media has had an impact on the question of what history can do, and how it is shaping individuals and communities right now.

Other contributions can be in the form of

* Visual art e.g., Illustrations, photos, cartoons, posters
* Essays and critical writing
* Philosophical reflections
* Telling radical histories
* Profiles of archives, collections, museums, projects, websites/ web resources
* Practical ‘how to’ articles – e.g., how to use an archive, how to work with historical sources, digital archiving and information management
* Creative Writing, including poetry
* Interviews with interesting projects
* Interviews with people in your community

All written contributions must not exceed 1500 words

All images must be sent as JPEGs 300 DPI

Deadline for contributions
15 July 2013

Please send contributions to fa_south@yahoo.co.uk and contact us for further information
http://feministarchivesouth.org.uk/
Twitter: @femarchivesouth

Please distribute widely!

Bradford Baked Zines

Bradford Baked Zines

 

A week-long popup zine shop celebrating self-publishing and DIY culture in Bradford.

At: 13 Market Street, Bradford BD13 3HW
From 13th - 18th May
Opening hours: 11am - 7pm

Featuring zines and self-published books and music of all descriptions for sale, exhibition, library, workshops, talks, readings, photocopy club, live music and much more. Details announced very soon.

Zine party on Friday 17th May, 6pm till late.

Bradford Baked Zines is a collaboration between zine collective Loosely Bound and other groups and individuals involved in zines, self publishing and DIY culture in Bradford beyond

More information on http://bradfordbakedzines.wordpress.com/

Empty shop space and support kindly supplied by Fabric Bradford.

Ante 4th and 5th May

Ante art event
Shipley does May Day
Sat 4 May (starts at 11am) - Sun 5 May (11-4)
Kirkgate Centre, 39A Kirkgate, Shipley, BD18 3EH.


Two days of May Day bookfair, art factory, gigs, and whatever you want to find. More info at: http://www.ante-art.co.uk/ (link to last year's events)


 "Ante is about the person we were until we became buried by work (or increasingly, ‘no work’), by shopping, debts, television...."

  

Exhibition & café all weekend

Saturday 11-4pm Book/zine/print fair

Saturday 7:30pm: Gig with NRacker, Yol, Brian Gilson, Petals and Lovely Honkey (£4)

Sunday 11-4pm: Art Factory

 

 
The weekend Includes:
 

• Q&A with Gee Vaucher (Crass/Exitstencil Press) will be at 11:30am on Sun 5th May. Gee will be around on Saturday too
• Screening a film by Chto Delat 
• Ante-art exhibition, ante-stalls/bookfair, ante-gig, ante diy art factory/skill share
• Ante will be running 'Twatter' - an opportunity to try out analogue technology including pens, paper and a genuine community notice-board!
• I think Knit A Bear Face are knitting something looking at the bedroom tax
• Myself and Lindsay will be displaying an exhibition of work by various artists commemorating labour and workers' movements, actions, and struggles. Included will be a selection of work from Shape and Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women, the Celebrate People's History poster project, the Occuprint portfolio as well as two tapestries in homage to historical trade union banners, and photographs by Matthew Cunningham.
• Plus bloody loads more that I don't even know about yet

 

collectivism

From my inbox via Andy Abbot/Black Dogs...

 

 

 

col•lec•tiv•ism
Noun
1. The practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it.

Black Dogs art collective wish to use the RadicalAesthetics/RadicalArt event ‘Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer’ on June 14th http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/art-politics-and-the-pamphleteer/ as an opportunity to facilitate a dialogue on the theme of ‘collectivism’.

Our proposed activity will take the form of a 20-minute slideshow containing up to 40 slides. Prior to the start of the slideshow a pamphlet will be distributed to each member of the audience. The pamphlet is designed to be read (silently) alongside the slideshow, with each page relating to a specific slide/image.

Black Dogs are inviting contributions to this exercise. Please send us a slide plus accompanying page (to be printed) that is either for or against collectivism (as defined above). Keep in mind the manner in which the audience will engage with your contribution and the amount of time they will spend with the slide and page (no more than 30 seconds).

Please send slides as (colour) jpegs in Powerpoint format (960 x 720 pixels) and pages as A5 black and white PDFs by 5pm Friday May 31st to blackdogsleeds@yahoo.com. Your contribution will then be considered for inclusion in the pamphlet and presentation and archived on our website.

Thanks and best wishes

Black Dogs
www.black-dogs.org

migration project

The wonderful Lindsay Starubuck has posted on her blog about the creative campaign about migration that she's started + a call out for fundraising and other artists to get involved:

http://andsomeplyers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/migration-project.html


She writes: "Borders are manmade and arbitrary and we all cross them everyday; some are just more enforced than others. To demonstrate this, I created two stencils for people to make their own prints and then we calculated the distance they had traveled to get to London (as the swallow flies)."

Some Girls

From my inbox:


Some Girls at International Project Space
Birmingham
24 April 2013

'Some Girls at International Project Space' convenes a forum that seeks to develop new dialogues around the Some Girls poster project (1982) within the context of Patrick Staff's exhibition ‘A Factory as it Might Be (Bournville)'.

The Some Girls poster project was initiated in the early 1980s at the conclusion of a 3-year action-research project working with young women in the West Midlands. Wishing to find a method for publically disseminating the outcomes of this research Carola Adams and Leah Thorn, with Graham Peet and Jonnie Turpie, facilitated the activity of the Madeley Young Women’s Writing and Design Group. The outcome of the collaboration was a set of 9 posters, developed around the experiences of the young women involved and underpinned by an inter-generational and collective ethos.

Carola Adams and Graham Peet will be present for the event, which will also include a screening of the film, Giro - Is this the modern world? (1984, 45mins). The film, produced by the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop, has its roots in the modes of production explored during the Some Girls project and explores ideas around work, labour and the benefit system in the context of the mid-1980s. The film consists of interviews and the thoughts of the young participants as they search for answers to questions about the dole system, wage levels and what the future holds for them.


Workshop: Some Girls are such a dragInternational Project Space,
School of Art, Bournville24 April, 3.00-5.00pm

As part of 'A Factory as it Might Be (Bournville)' artist Patrick Staff has convened a series of workshop meetings with students and graduates. The upcoming session will take place Wednesday 24th April from 3 - 5pm meeting in the gallery space at International Project Space. This workshop will be convened by Staff in collaboration with Inheritance Projects' Curator Laura Guy.

The session will use the Some Girls poster project as a framework and will explore the visuality of the posters, as well as ideas of the politics and use of radical archival materials. We will examine the posters as contemporary tools for discussion and collaboration as well as ideas surrounding cross-generational dialogues in contemporary feminist art practice.

Participants should have an interest in meeting and working collaboratively however no experience is necessary. In keeping with the ethos of mutual education there is no expectation of professionalism or prior experience, but rather the aim will be to try out methods and share ideas, skills, knowledge and enthusiasms.

http://internationalprojectspace.org/

Illustrated Letters

Hannah Rose, an intern at Glasgow Women's Library (and former vounteer at Canny Little Library - yay!) has been in touch filling me in on the 'Illustrated Letters' project going on at the Library, and recognising the links and ovelaps that project has with some of the aims of Shape & Situate zine. It sounds like a terrific project for anybody interested in remembering women's lives.

She writes:

[...] A project called Illuminated Letters. These are a series of creative letter writing workshops and esol workshops around glasgow, and beyond, and also an international call out for people, to write letters to women who are no longer with us whom we wish to write an illustrated letter to. It will hopefully culminate in an exhibition.

 

A link to the little blog about the project: http://illuminatedlettersproject.wordpress.com/about/gallery-of-modern-art-goma/

More info here too: http://illuminatedlettersproject.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/dear-women/

 

This is a message to women across the world. We are collecting letters of love and honour to a heroine who can be found in Glasgow Women’s Library, a woman who is no longer alive but whose story is celebrated somewhere in our shelves and boxes. You can find out what happens next at womenslibrary.org.uk
Come along to our inspiring workshops or simply write to your heroine today at Glasgow Women’s Library, 23 Landressy Street, Glasgow G40 1BP.

Life Is Short

Right now, after this week at work, and all that I've been pondering as a result, nothing is more in tune with me than this poster by Kevin Caplicki.
WHAT COULD YOU BE DOING?



((It also fits in with a lot of what myself and Lindsay Starbuck have been discussing re. our contribution to this year's Ante art festival to be held over May Day weekend in Shipley (more on this later, but for now here's the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/168941936594177/permalink/175176799304024/#!/events/408377285927531/?fref=ts) OR: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/443927942362210/?fref=ts - not quite sure why there's 2 different pages))

The 'Life Is Short' silkscreen poster was created for the 2013 Justseeds collaborative installation/exhibition, 'Uprisings: Images of Labor'

Kevin says: I chose to evaluate whether "work" is a valuable way to spend time, reinterpreting World War II slogans "Time is short" and "Make every minute count", for my contribution to out "labor" themed exhibition.

The print is available to buy on white or brown paper: http://www.justseeds.org/kevin_caplicki/18lifeisshort.html

This print was designed by Laurel Bell and Kevin Caplicki, entirely handmade with films cut from rubylith, stencils, and spraypaint, then printed cooperatively with Jesse Purcell, Laurel Bell, and others on recycled Mr. French paper.
 

Comics for Change

As a huge fan of the 'Oregon History Comics: Illustrated Stories from Oregon’s Little-Known Past' comics zines, I'm thrilled to hear that there's a new project afoot by the makers.

See: call for submission for Comics for Change! Illustrated Stories From Oregon’s Front Lines. A series of 10 comics that will tell the stories of Oregonian activists working for social change.

Sounds perfect!!
All the details and promo video here: http://knowyourcity.org/2013/04/22/know-your-city-announces-comics-for-change/

S&S at DIY Cultures

 

DIY Cultures fair

Saturday 7th April

at: Rich Mix, London

(http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/diy-cultures-2013-zines-and-artists-books-fair/)

 

A day long festival of zines, artist books, comics and distros. There will be films, animation and video art as well as art exhibitions, workshops and music.

Events include a talk from the Black Feminists, talks on unemployment and creativity, artist-run spaces and prisoner zines as well as DIY workshops throughout the day.

 

“DIY culture is about creating alternatives to what is out there, whether it’s news, music or art, and doing it without the need of any experts or a lot of money” Sofia Niazi, DIY Cultures Co-curator

“In spite of blogs, facebook and twitter, zines seem to have had a nationwide comeback. This will showcase the best of alternative and independent activities from all across the UK in one big gathering.” Hamja Ahsan, DIY Cultures Co-Curator

Programme:

Upstairs:

Craft & drawing Workshops by ExtraBones & DIY Couture

Downstairs:

1pm: We All Can Do It! Black Women in DIY Culture - TALK
Join Black Feminists in a discussion about how black women have played a vital role in DIY cultures with Stephanie Phillips, Aurella Yussuf and Rianna Parker.
www.blackfeminists.org
#DIYBlackFems

2pm: FIlm - DIY OR DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist
feat. Zinesters, Lydia Lunch, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr, Artists.

3pm: Unemployment & Creativity Panel Discussion
with Sarah Tea-Rex (Graduating in Unemployment Zine), Saban Kazim (Gissa a Job Zine), Robin Bale (Dole arts)
#DIYDole

4.30pm: Prisoner Zines, Writing & Creavity Panel
with Marek of Not Shut Up Magazine, Nicki Prisoner Fightback & Hamja of Free Talha Ahsan Campaign
#DIYPrison

6pm: DIY Artists Communities - Panel Discussion
with Pippa Koszerek (Post-Artists / Independent Art School / Arts Against Extraditions), Craftivist Collective Gareth (Foodface gallery) & other TBC
#DIYArt

Programme - www.diycultures.tumblr.com
Twitter - #DIY2013 @DIYCulturesFair
Facebook - www.facebook.com/pages/DIY-Cultures

/////

PLUS

Posters from issues 1-4 of Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational European Women zine will be shown as a slide show at DIY Cultures.

(N.B - it's my first time at playing about with the 'make a movie' programme I have on my computer, so it's not the flashiest of slideshow films, but it allows me to show the posters and explain the zine even though I sadly can't be at the event myself)

 

 

 

Change the Culture, Change the World

Via Favianna Rodriguez (http://favianna.com/) -

Change the Culture, Change the World

http://creativetimereports.org/2013/04/01/change-the-culture-change-the-world/

"Art is uniquely positioned to move people—inspiring them, inciting new questions and provoking curiosity or outrage. Normally, and especially when we are in campaign mode, we tend to think about what artists can contribute to the action space. We think about how artists can strengthen the will and push people to act. But we should also ask ourselves: What are the valuable contributions artists can make in the idea space? Artists don’t think like policy folks. They don’t think like organizers. And this is a good thing."

"I talk about this and more in this piece on Creative Time. It's a great read about why have to strongly support artists in social change work. Featuring art by and mentions of Erik Ruin, Alex Rivera, Julio Salgado, Ernesto Yerena Montejano and more!"

http://creativetimereports.org/2013/04/01/change-the-culture-change-the-world/

Via Andy Abbott:


All the info here: http://www.brad.ac.uk/music/whats-on-workshops/

Just Do(ing) It, Again: The Politics of DIY and Self-Organised Culture

A day of presentations, workshops, films and discussion about the social, political and economic resonances of DIY culture.

Saturday May 11^th, 2013 at 1 in 12 Club, Bradford, West Yorkshire.
11am – 6pm with entertainment ‘til late.

The first Just Do(ing) It conference happened in May 2011 at S1 Artspace, Sheffield and focused on artist-led activity with presentations and contributions from John Holloway (Professor of Sociology, Insituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico, author of Change the World without taking Power (new ed. Pluto, London, 2010) and Crack Capitalism (Pluto, London, 2010); Leeds Creative Timebank (Alternative economy initiative http://www.leedscreativetimebank.co.uk/); Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt (Sheffield-born writer and investigative researcher); Milena Placentile (Winnipeg based curator, writer and researcher); and Gregory Sholette (US-based artist/writer on informal art practice, author of Dark Matter, Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture, 2011).

This second get-together aims to share experiences of, and critically reflect on, underground and marginal cultural practices with a particular focus on art and music. We understand DIY activity as that which is not-for-profit, self-organised, consciously non-professional or counter-institutional and as such disrupts and exceeds the capitalist constructs of work and leisure. The event proposes that such experiments in independent/autonomous, collective and non-capitalist organisation point towards a different world. What would a world based on the principles, social relations and ethics arising from underground cultural practices and their communities/scenes look like? How can we share knowledge and experiences to help strengthen and build upon these oftentimes marginal and precarious networks? What conditions are necessary to allow DIY culture to thrive? What does this all mean in the current context of neo-conservative Big Society rhetoric?

The event will take place at the legendary 1 in 12 Club in Bradford, one of Europe’s longest-running anarchist social centres. Over its three floors there will be a series of presentations, workshops, films and opportunity for informal discussion. Vegan and vegetarian food will be available from the café and there will be musical entertainment, conversation and drinking in the evening.


We are currently accepting proposals for presentations, workshops and films to be screened.

All should respond to the above theme in some manner and be an hour maximum in length (30 minutes with 30 minutes for audience discussion for presentations). We particularly welcome proposals that:

- Are case studies of self-organised initiatives in art and music (collectives, bands, record labels, artist-led spaces, co-ops, publishing houses, etc).
- Theoretically and/or historically frame self-organised activity (particularly in terms of cultural-political movements such as Surrealism, the Situationist International, Italian Autonomia, Feminist and non-European movements, and the production of noncapitalist subjectivities).
- Practical workshops in organising, communicating and sharing skills useful to sustaining DIY cultural activity.
- Documentaries about self-organised culture and artist films relating to the themes above.
The event is operating on minimal funding and as such we cannot offer a fee to those providing content. We do, however, intend to contribute towards travel costs to those who deliver presentations or workshops and provide food and refreshments.


Just Do(ing) It, Again is organised by Andy Abbott through his role as Fellow in Music at University of Bradford.

If you would like to submit a proposal for content please send a brief one-page outline of the main themes and content of your paper/presentation/workshop/film as well as a paragraph or two of biographical information and/or weblinks to Andy at zadanzig@yahoo.co.uk by 12pm, Friday 15^th March.

Laydeez do comics - COTL talk

Laydeez do Comics, Leeds

Monday 25^th March 2012
Starts 6.30pm Ends 9.30 pm (approx)
£1.50 All welcome (mixed event)


Speakers:

Melanie Maddison of   ‘Colouring Outside The Lines’ – a zine featuring interviews with contemporary female artists http://cotlzine.blogspot.co.uk/

Adam Cadwell Artist –Web comic ‘The Everyday’ now published by Great Beast books, which he co-founded. Adam is also in the several anthologies including Nelson. www.adamcadwell.com

Dr Mel Gibson – Academic – Northumbria University. What became of Bunty? - The lost history of British comics for girls. www.dr-mel-comics.co.uk


Laydeez do Comics is the UK’s first women’s led comics forum, that focuses on autobiographical comics and dramas of the everyday. It was started by illustrator Nicola Streeten & artist Sarah Lightman in London in 2009. Illustrator Louise Crosby & academic Helen Iball set up Laydeez do Comics in Leeds in 2012.


At:
Wharf Chambers
23-25 Wharf Street, Leeds, LS2 7EQ
Wheelchair accessible
http://www.wharfchambers.org/

(MM: Please ignore the bit on the flier where it refers to me as being an 'Artist' - this is a mistake)

Troublemakers - Durham - latest info

Troublemakers #1

at The Empty Shop, 35c Framwellgate Bridge Durham City, DH1 4SJ

Friday 15 March,

6pm – 9pm

Free entry

(Image of Bikini Kill by Lucy Thane)

Panel discussion Producing DIY Feminist Cultural Activisms: The role of zines, art & music.

Kate Wadkins, Melanie Maddison & Julia Downes

This panel will discuss DIY feminist cultural production as a vital, albeit marginalised, arena of feminist activisms.
Kate will discuss the role of zines as both an indispensable tool for sustainable community-building and empowerment, as well as a form of democratic art, in various New York City subcultures. Zines have functioned as provocative political and artistic tools for centuries. Essential to communication in the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s (as well as numerous political movements before it), zines continue to play a crucial role in communications between activists and artists today.

Melanie will discuss the role, importance, and act of creative sociopolitical history projects in relation to her collaborative radical art project ‘Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women’ that will also be on show. Melanie will also explore further other examples of art that engages with the politics of memory and socio-political history, in the context of the importance of us documenting, analysing, and publishing our own cultural and community histories.
EDIT/PROVISO: Melanie -- I'm not an academic; my inarticulation will make this very apparent when you see me on a 'panel' for my first time! I am however super passionate about cultural activism, despite my non-academic credentials - I hope that shines through my tongue-tied ness and lack of fancy language!!

Julia will discuss how DIY music offers a distinctive set of strategies with which participants can construct subversive genders, sexualities and feminisms. Using examples from riot grrrl and queer feminist music cultures DIY music is theorised as part of an enduring historical continuation of radical world-making carried out by diverse groups including non-white, working-class, feminine and non-heterosexual (or queer) subject positions.

Live music

Onsind is an acoustic pop-punk band from Pity Me, Durham made up of Nathan and Daniel. They have been playing shows together since 2007, developing a peculiarly North Eastern brand of energetic, melodic, acoustic pop-music coupled with uncompromisingly political lyrics. Onsind have releases on legendary US DIY punk label Plan-it-X Records (Andrew Jackson Jihad, Heathers, Antsy Pants), as well as Durham's very own Discount Horse records (The Middle Ones, Ace Bushy Striptease, Colour Me Wednesday). Recommended If You Like: Against Me! The Beautiful South, RVIVR.
http://onsind.bandcamp.com


Andrew Lips is a queer song-writer who has been releasing albums endlessly since 2006. Blending together auto-biographical tales from sexuality, travelling, home life to sexual assault and body issues while delivering them in a catchy up-beat fashion. Not a political singer, just a nerd trying to work through their personal hang ups in life. Andrew has self-released several of hir albums and also worked with Plan-It-X Records. People who enjoy making out, having big crushes and crying into their pillows will like this. Fans of Your Heart Breaks and Kimya Dawson will dig this too. http://andrewlips.bandcamp.com

Zines & Books

Pop-up zine library, bookstall & distro by BRAIN WAVES, The People’s Bookshop, Newcastle Nerd Punx & The Canny Little Library (tbc) http://brainwaveszines.tumblr.com http://peoplesbookshop.co.uk http://newcastlenerdpunx.com

Exhibition of Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women
Shape & Situate is a zine of posters made by artists and DIY creative folk from within Europe, each poster highlighting the (often hidden) history and lives of radical inspirational women and collectives from Europe, as a way of connecting us with the past and the present through a dynamic cultural (re-)articulation of these women’s lives. The zine aims to activate feminist cultural memory, to inspire in the present, and to visually bring women’s social and political history to life and into view. http://remember-who-you-are.blogspot.co.uk

Further information about the Troublemakers event

This is a launch event for Troublemakers: Queer//Feminist Academic-Activists in Cultural Theory & Activism. A new network for activists, academics, researchers, queers, feminists and misfits to change the way we write, tell, and make histories from zines, to academia, to the culture at large.

This event has been made free and accessible to the public with support from the Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities and St. Aidans College at Durham University. www.dur.ac.uk/csgs www.dur.ac.uk/st-aidans.college

The Empty Shop is a non-profit arts organisation in the North East of England and based in Durham City. Since 2008 The Empty Shop provides a much needed and accessible platform for artists of all levels and backgrounds to produce exhibit and engage with art.  http://emptyshop.org

 

Facebook event page www.facebook.com/events/338847342899286

About the panel speakers

Kate Wadkins is a Brooklyn-based writer and artist. Of late, she is working in social media, assisting on "The Punk Singer," a documentary about Kathleen Hanna, and thinking about creative ways to approach Hurricane Sandy Relief. She writes about feminist cultural production, primarily in punk scenes. In December, Kate published "Freakin' Out: Remaking Masculinity through Punk Rock in Detroit," an article in "Punk Anteriors," a special double issue of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory. Ever a zine enthusiast, she curates BRAIN WAVES: a zine and print collection, and co-edited International Girl Gang Underground, a compilation zine about reverberations of the riot grrrl movement in the wake of its legacy. Kate is a founding member of For the Birds Collective as well as a classic virgo, coffee enthusiast, bass player, and rabble rouser.

Melanie Maddison (Leeds, UK) collates the zine, ‘Shape & Situate: Posters Of Inspirational European Women’ (4 issues, 2010-2012). Melanie has also produced/created the zines ‘Colouring Outside the Lines’ - a zine featuring interviews with contemporary female artists, 'Taking Cultural Production Into Our Own Hands', 'Reassess Your Weapons', 'With Arms Outstretched', 'UK Ladyfest Artwork Zine', and 'I'm Not Waiting: Doing It Yrself Now', as well as writing for Pikaland and Aorta magazine (USA). She has curated and been involved with many zine-related art exhibitions including ones at The Women’s Library, London; Gallery II, Bradford; Space Station 65, London; Ladyfest Leeds; Victoria Baths, Manchester; and The New Museum, New York. She is also a regular contributor to various UK-based zine fairs and events. Melanie is currently working on a zine project, ‘Remembering Who We Are’, alongside Lindsay Starbuck. The project is looking at individual’s personal histories to see how we come to be the people that we are, with the politics that we have. It looks at social and political history on a personal level; things that individuals have experienced in their lifetime that have influenced and activated them, or formative events that have made people think about the world in a different way – collating stepping stones for inspiration and encouragement. The project aims to challenge the myth of the ‘perfect’ activist who comes to their work fully actualised; and aims to remember some of where we've come from in order to show how our unique experiences have led us to work to create change in the ways that we do.

Julia Downes is a Research Associate in the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University where she is currently working on a project on domestic violence. Julia's writing and research has also focused on riot grrrl, queer feminist communities, cultural activism and all-girl bands. She has lectured on popular music and society, feminist cultural activism and queer girl cultures at the University of Leeds, University of Derby, University of Birmingham and Durham University. Julia has been active in DIY queer feminist cultural activism for over 10 years within Manifesta, Ladyfest Leeds, Ladies Rock UK, Star and Shadow Cinema and even clean hands cause damage and as a drummer in the bands The Holy Terror, Fake Tan, Vile Vile Creatures and the Physicists.

some upcoming UK zine events

Sheffield Zine Fest
16 March 2013
http://sheffieldzinefest.wordpress.com/

Shipley's First Zine Fest
16 March 2013, 1-4pm
at: Shipley Underground Market."Come along to Shipley's First Zinefest - buy Zines from our Zine stalls, browse our Zine Library and have a go at making your own at Photocopy Club! This free event brings together Zinesters local and from across the country so pop in whether you are a seasoned Zinester or interested in finding out more about the art of Zines. The stalls will be situated in empty stalls in the market :)"
http://www.facebook.com/events/526766210696711/?ref=3  


DIY Cultures: Zines, Artists Books and Comics 

DIY Cultures will be taking place on Sunday 7th April at the Rich Mix in East London. In addition to a zine fair, there will be talks and workshops throughout the day celebrating the spirit of DIY. Tables are a mere five pounds but spaces are limited.

Stall booking details are here: www.diycultures.tumblr.com

 

 

Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair (Manchester)

Fanzine Fair at Victoria Baths which will take place on Sunday 5th May from 12noon to 4pm. 
We are inviting fanzine-makers, small presses, independent magazine/book publishers, book artists, art and design collectives, small record labels and representatives of university and college art, illustration, design, fashion and photography courses to take a stall to display and sell their work. Stalls cost £10.
We are also looking to hold readings, talks and discussions and are inviting Fanzine makers to offer these to the programme. If you would like to give a talk, run a workshop or give a demonstration, then we may offer you a free stall. We will provide space for people to read from their Fanzines.www.victoriabaths.org.uk |  gill.wright@victoriabaths.org.uk