Zines, Bit of studio time and blog catch up and an exhibition.

Really nice to hold a zine  workshop with yr 11 and 12's today, starting with the zine exhibition in Henrion, which features a few zines that I've participated in. Had a chat with Jess (Fine Art Academic) yesterday about how this is one of the few remaining ways to put a critical argument forward and to be able to have some agency, use your voice to say something with a really visually engaging artwork. Touched on how the government are slowly minimising the arts (do they recognise that art is a form of protest and to think freely is dangerous to their agenda)

This spilled into my workshop - I really wanted to give the participants agency, so whilst showing them how to make and structure a zine, and sharing some nice print hacks with scotch tape, I asked them questions about - if they were prime minister what would they change, and if they made a zine about their  identity what would be in it... Then we talked through some of the questions that popped up from there. 

The school teacher had suggested that the zines were focused on the work that they were doing in school - but as the themes were chosen from a preset selection - I asked if we could focus on an area where they had complete agency in how they approached what they were making - in order to touch on the society that we live in and the world around us, and how they respond to it.  Of course, if they'd chosen the theme of bridges, transport or the dinner table, because they absolutely wanted to talk about them (in the same way that you can make a zine about crisps / or because it was pertinent to their understanding of self or place then great) but I wanted them to be able to approach art as it would be talked at an art school, not as it is in a curriculum set by the tories. 

The session got good feedback.. I'll keep tweaking it till I'm totally happy.

Spent a bit of time with these experiemental swatches - seriously considering doing a larger one and just seeing where it takes me.