School of Social & Political Sciences

 

Please join us on Wednesday 10 December 1-2 pm for an online zine-making session!

Helen Simmons (Northumbria University) will give a brief introduction on the grassroots history of zines as creative, do-it-yourself booklets used for personal expression and activism. She will then share how zine-making has supported her own research practice, giving examples of where she has used it as a solo or group exercise. She will explain how she has used this analogue creative method to reflect on place, invite community voices, and encourage authentic, imperfect self-expression.

We’ll then turn to creating our own zine to think about place, whether that’s in our professional life or everyday experience (or both!).

We won’t need anything fancy, just bring one sheet of paper, some crayons, junk mail, old magazines and newspapers, and a pen.

Some interesting reading and projects on zines:

• Bradley, L., Ptolomey, A.M. and Mirza, N. (2025) ‘From emotional interruptions to wilful disruptions: Zine-making as a post-qualitative method for locating, articulating, navigating, and doing emotion in research’. SSRN. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5141755.

• Zines at the Wellcome Collection

 

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First published: 1 December 2025