Crafting Spaces: Exploring the Potential for a Queer(ed) Curatorial Practice through Zines

Abstract

This research report explores the potential of zines in creating and sustaining a decentralised, affective, and queer(ed) curatorial practice; viewed through a theoretical framework of Trans Care and queer communal action that draws on the writing of Hil Malatino, Harry Josephine Giles, and other queer, trans and feminist scholars. This research report is foregrounded by a discussion on the author’s experiences and discomfort with mainstream South African institutions, specifically relating to a perceived lack of care extended towards artists and curators and an overreliance on mainstream spaces. From there, focusing on the history of zines as small-scale, noncommercial, self-published print works, the research explores how zines have been (and continue to be) used to form communal connections, mobilise anti-institutional action, and disseminate subversive material that ordinarily would not be distributed by mainstream platforms. Additionally, the research report also examines archival examples of pre-1994 South African queer print media to examine historical evidence of how queer individuals have relied on print matter to provide communal support, share information relating to queer healthcare, and engage in activism. Finally, these concepts are actualised through a curatorial engagement in the form of a zine jam, where participants gather to produce zines and engage in the communal action of crafting together. By emphasizing the punk, communal nature of zine production and distribution, the research emphasises artistic and curatorial agency and encourages a movement towards more communal ways of working together to avoid an overreliance on institutional platforms and spaces.