In October 2021 we collaborated with Short Supply to work
with our youth group, Whitworth Young Contemporaries. The group is aimed at
young people aged 16 – 24, and revolves around the academic year.
As with the previous 18 months, Whitworth Young Contemporaries were still
meeting online via Zoom. It was important for us at the gallery that during the
pandemic the group still met every two weeks as it fostered friendship and a
sense of community. As the government were still restricting the number of
people that could meet in person it meant that we were restricted to online
activity only. As such, it was decided to explore Zines further as a medium for
collaboration.
As a queer producer I decided to explore what queerness was with the young
people and as such I decided to approach the arts collective Short Supply. If
you do not know who Short Supply are then where have you been hiding. The
artist led organisation is made up of a trio of queer and non-binary
individuals – Mollie Balshaw and Rebekah Beasly are the groups Directors and
Grace Collins is the organisations Creative Consultant. Short Supply are a
bridge between early-career artists and the more established art world,
breaking the cycle of needing work to gain a reputation and needing a
reputation to get work.
Grace Collins worked closely with the group to facilitate our online
creative sessions. The sessions, amongst other themes explored our domestic interior
to consider what might be considered queer, with the sessions then lending
themselves to facilitating conversations around what queerness meant to each of
us. Working on Zoom, the group also contributed art pieces to a shared file
that would be included within the zine.
However, we were also fortunate to meet in person on a couple of occasions
when covid conditions allowed. Over the December period the group held zine
making sessions in the School of Creativity and invited visitors of the gallery
to contribute to the creation of our zine. These contributions are also
included in the finished publication.
called Otter. Otter allows for any conversation to be typed out as it happens
and then saved. However, depending on how strong someone’s accent is, Otter
often gets the words and grammar incorrect, which helps to queer the text
itself because in parts the grammar does not follow standard English rules. The
title of the Zine Oh, Great. Oh, Queer was also chosen by collectively
highlighting certain statements from the Otter text.
and explorative questions on aspects of gender and sexuality. Whilst most of
the group identified themselves as cisgendered heterosexuals, each member
flourished in a safe space to understand what queerness was, and what it could
mean for their own creative practices. It also fostered an environment where
those members of the group who identified as LGBTQIA+ could be creative in an
open and inclusive way without feeling they might be restricted in their
creative outputs.
WYC zine2
You can also find out more about the great things that Short Supply are doing here:
https://www.shortsupply.org/
Gathering of Strangers 