By Stephanie Cubbin

In this post Stephanie shares a beautiful and thought provoking zine created by a group of creative Sixth Form students. Through curation and design students have amplified their voices collectively and have taken ownership of their work. This could be an exciting project for students interested in editorial work or those who like to use their creativity to make their voice heard.

“A definition of the zine is often self-published, counterculture and small in circulation. Many are anti-authoritarian and therefore by in large, attractive to teenagers as a way to explore their own cultural identities and creativity.

My brilliant colleague is a collector of old discarded books and magazines, and the development of the zine came from her finding a way to use all the wonderful adverts in the donated Oxfam books. This, with a cohort of art students that were excellent creative writers too, saw the beginning of the sixth form zine.”

 

The first Zine ‘Zeena’ involved selecting student artwork, collecting vintage imagery, using their drawings and paintings from their current project, and then digitising it. The layering and presentation of visual imagery is all completed digitally. The process is repeated for further issues, using the format again and again and the cutting and layering of imagery is an important part of the process.

 

The students use this graphics skill in their art coursework books, developing more sophisticated collaging and layering with their secondary resources. Images from photocopies of books cut and drawn into, old manuscripts and sheet music to music printed onto and magazine images used to support the text that has been created by the students.

 

A core team of sixth form Art students create all of the content, including the poetry, writing and collected material collages. Encouraging the students to take the responsibility and ownership of the zine after the first copy is always part of the thinking and some students take greater responsibility for the zine at different times, depending on their workload. The zine is seen as a way to give confidence and positive feedback for students work, students are often asked to share work they have created in the zine, and then asked to make further literary contributions too.

 

The Zine has been recently given a revamp and a new name – the Anchoress. Currently students who are interested in an editorial career or those that want to speak out around areas of interest find themself drawn to the zine as a way to make themself heard. There is always an appreciation for exciting art and students approach their peers asking to use their work. A collective voice. Currently they are now thinking of selling the zine to their peers to make the printing of it sustainable and even get some extra materials for their creativity.

 

As a department, we are working to expand the variety, experience and understanding of what art and creativity is. Any opportunities to widen the experiences of students to work cross disciplinary is part of our vision and ethos.

 

Website: https://stephaniecubbin.org

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This is a sample of a resource created by UK Charity AccessArt. We have over 1500 resources to help develop and inspire your creative thinking, practice and teaching.

AccessArt welcomes artists, educators, teachers and parents both in the UK and overseas.

We believe everyone has the right to be creative and by working together and sharing ideas we can enable everyone to reach their creative potential.