Introducing our speakers for Zines ASSEMBLE Sympoisum - to find out more and register to attend, visit the Zines ASSEMBLE page.

Kika Van Robays (they/them) is a PhD student in Cultural Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from Belgium and Hong Kong. Their research focuses on zines, queer communities and the Sinosphere. Kika is also a poet and the author of Let the Mourning Come (2022). They have an MA in Chinese Language and Culture and Gender and Diversity studies. Kika will be presenting on Queer/ing Sinophone Zines.

They will be speaking in Session 1, 10:00-11.30 BST.

Zahra Alsafi (she/her) is pursuing a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Utah Asia Campus. Inspired by her community and international experiences, she hopes to pursue public health dentistry with a focus on preventative care for immigrant and refugee populations. In conjunction with her public health practicum, she is constructing zines on dental health for school children and their parents in South Korea. 

Scott Russell Morris (he/him) is a professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Utah. His essays explore themes of domestic masculinity, faith, doubt, and queer identity. He is the editor & creator of Magpie Zines, zines about tarot, magpies, and found meaning.

They will be sharing a lightning talk on Dental Health Zines for Children and Parents.

They will be speaking in Session 1, 10:00-11.30 BST.

Zahra Alsafi and Scott Russell Morris

Peter Willis

Peter Willis (he/him) is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University, U.K. His research focuses on the relationship between technological development and the emergence of zine cultures. He also runs BOOKS, a secondhand book and zine shop in South London. Peter will be sharing a lightning talk on ‘What Might a Zine Studies Look Like?’

He will be speaking in Session 1, 10:00-11.30 BST.

Inte Gloerich is a PhD researcher at Utrecht University and the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences). In her PhD, she explores sociotechnical imaginaries around blockchain technology. Currently, this is focussed on ‘cryptospeak’, the vernacular that is used in the blockchain scene, and how it relates to these imaginaries. More broadly, Inte’s work involves the politics, artistic imagination, and (counter)cultures surrounding digital technology and economy. She co-edited MoneyLab Reader 2: Overcoming the Hype (with Geert Lovink and Patricia de Vries) and State Machines: Reflections and Actions at the Edge of Digital Citizenship (with Yiannis Colakides and Marc Garrett) and organized several conferences addressing the crossroads between digital economy, technology, culture, and politics. She collaborated with Amateur Cities for the Feminist Finance Zine and Feminist Finance Syllabus. Inte teaches at the MA New Media & Digital Culture and the BA Media & Information at the University of Amsterdam.

Ania Molenda (she/her) is an independent Rotterdam-based researcher, curator and writer. She is a co-founder and director of research and publishing platform Amateur Cities. In her work Ania focuses on the socio-cultural dimension of spatial practices. She is interested in developing new forms of debate that bring different disciplines together. Since 2017, she has also been involved in research on technical and cultural aspects of dealing with complex digital archives. Before starting an independent career, Ania worked as a researcher and design teacher at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture (The Why Factory) as well as an architect at MVRDV, Powerhouse Company and SVESMI. In 2019 she was a finalist of the Geert Bekaert Award for architectural criticism, and in 2018 a co-recipient of Dutch Design Award in Design Research for Amateur Cities and New Generations. 

Inte and Ania will be sharing a lightning talk on their Radical Care: Embracing Feminist Finance zine.

They will be speaking in Session 1, 10:00-11.30 BST.

Feminist Finance Zine

Feminist Finance Syllabus

Inte Gloerich and Ania Molenda

Lauren Cooper is a PhD Researcher and Tutor at the University of Glasgow and her thesis is titled ‘Autotheory and its Socio-Political Interventions: Memoir, Manifestos and Zines. Lauren is the lead organiser of the cross-disciplinary conference ‘Autotheory: Thinking through Self, Body and Practice’ and has delivered creative workshops on her research, including as part of the Being Human festival 2021. Lauren also makes her own zines and you can find out more about her work at www.laurencooper.info. Lauren will be presenting ‘Looking for Theory: Reflections on Researching Autotheoretical Zines’.

She will be speaking in Session 2, 11:45 - 13:15 BST

Lauren Cooper

Camille and Colleen

Camille is a clinical physiotherapist in a multidisciplinary pain management service (St Thomas’ Hospital, London) with a real drive for the integration of human aspects of care to biological ones in medical practices. She has been supporting healthcare professionals to lean in the difficulties that may be triggered in their attempts to respond to patients’ emotional and social circumstances.

Colleen is a university lecturer with over 25 years’ experience teaching in various educational sectors. I have been clinically diagnosed with fibromyalgia and a brain condition called chiari malformation. As a result, she suffers from chronic pain daily that affects every aspect of her life. She was happy to be invited to take part in Camille’s research project as a patient advisor, hoping to bring further awareness to the effects on pain.

They will be presenting ‘Zines as a potential tool to tackle chronic pain stigma: a collaborative case study’.

They will be presenting in Session 2 - 11:45 - 13:15 BST.

Anita Slater

Anita Slater (she/her) is starting a PhD at MMU through the Leverhulme Trust LUDeC programme. Her research explores what she calls ‘guided forms’ such as manuals, maps, and diagnostic questionnaires, and examines how we are guided to ‘use’ forms of writing, ways of thinking, and urban spaces in designated ways. Her work explores how writing poems may help re-imagine urban pedagogical spaces.  

As a writer and zine maker, Anita has published articles, essays and poems exploring a variety of topics including feminism, experimental writing, and mental illness. Anita is also a workshop facilitator for the Feminist Library and Assemblage Art Collective, and has helped with workshops at the Barbican Centre and the Foundling Museum. 

Anita will be presenting This is Not a Guide- Exploring the Concept of ‘Use’ Through Poetry Zines.

She will be presenting during Session 2, 11:45 - 13:15 BST.

Deniz Beser (b. 1986) is a Vienna and Istanbul based visual artist, curator and independent publisher. He received his BA degree in Ceramics and Glass Design at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, Turkey and studied in Painting at University of Sevilla. He is the director of Fanzineist Vienna Art Book & Zine Fair, Open Studio Days Istanbul and Fanzineist – Zine Fest Of Istanbul. Besides, Beser is the co-founder of the zine & art collective Heyt be! Fanzin.

Deniz will be speaking about Zines as an Artistic Practice // Fanzine Culture In Turkey.

Deniz will be presenting in Session 3 - 14:00 - 15:30 BST.

Deniz Beser

Rhia Cook is the founder and editor of Potluck Zine, an independent publication that celebrates stories of cooking, eating and sharing food. She’s passionate about providing opportunities for those just getting started in the creative industries a chance to share their work. When she’s not running Potluck, she works as a freelance digital content producer, writing articles and developing social media content that shows off the amazing work other creative people do. You’ll find her making chocolate chip cookies in her kitchen in Dundee, probably whilst being shouted at by her notoriously lovely but demanding cat, Marco. She’ll be speaking on Making Zine-making Financially Sustainable!

Instagram: @potluckzine

Twitter: @potluckzine 

https://www.potluckzine.co.uk

Rhia will be presenting during Session 3 - 14:00 - 15:30 BST

Rhia Cook

Sabrina Mei-Li Smith is a Ph.D. scholar, writer, lecturer, and researcher in the discipline of creative writing. She lectures on De Montfort University’s undergraduate Creative Writing B.A. Her first play, The Holy Bible, received Arts Council funding In 2019. She specializes in writing with marginalized individuals, and challenging accepted narratives, through writing residencies with Writing East Midland’s Elder Tree project, and Leicester City Council’s Memories into Healing Words project, in which the narratives of Leicester’s elderly, street-homeless, and Irish Traveller communities are documented. She runs specialized and mainstream creative writing workshops for Leicester City Council’s Adult Education College and has been a writer in residence for Coalville Writes 2019. Sabrina was part of De Montfort University’s National Writing Day Creative Writing and Practice Research Conference in 2020, The University of Leicester’s Practice of Storytelling Conference in 2022, and a regular speaker and zine workshop facilitator at Leicester’s States of Independence Literary festival. She has been published by Feminist Trash, Ink Pantry Press, TigerShark, and more.

Sabrina will be presenting on Zazen: a metafanzine novel in progress. She will be presenting during Session 3 - 14:00 - 15:30 BST.

Sabrina Mei-Li Smith

Tukru

tukru is a non-binary weirdo from finland who has been living in the uk for 19 years (almost half their life) and making zines longer. they also run the long running Vampire Hag Distro (previously Vampire Sushi Distro) they are working on a zine about going home to finland in the middle of the covid pandemic because their mum was suddenly dying from cancer and they had to see her before she passed.

They will be presenting a lightning talk on Bat Habitat #31? documenting grief and parental death.

tukru will be speaking during Session 3 - 14:00 - 15:30

Jason Luther is an Assistant Professor of Writing Arts at Rowan University where he teaches courses on self-publishing, pop culture, and writing technologies. His research focuses on multimodal (counter)publics, sound writing, and DIY participatory media, especially zines. Jason is a public scholar for the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, self-publishes the Factsheet Five Archive Project (f5archive.org), and is a regular contributor to Broken Pencil magazine.

Jolie Braun is the Curator of Modern Literature and Manuscripts and Associate Professor at The Ohio State University Libraries, where she oversees the modern literature and history collections and provides special collections-based instruction. Her recent publications include "From the Margins to the Center: Introducing Self-Published American Literature to Undergraduates" in Pedagogy and "'Your Zine Changed My Life': The Impact and Legacy of Zines in Sassy Magazine" in American Periodicals.

They will presenting on ‘Review Zines and Distros: Historicizing Zine Networks of the 1980s and 90s’.

They will be presenting in Session 4, 15:45 - 17:15 BST.

Jason Luther and Jolie Braun

Laura-Marie River Victor Peace Nopales is a queer traveler. She enjoys ecstatic dance, art making, learning, ritual, and prayer. She’s been making zines for 32 years. She enjoys fat liberation, singing, plant life, guttermancy, and lives at the intersection of disability and sex. Pleasure is her favorite way of experiencing God. Laura-Marie is a lifelong hearer of voices and experiences extreme states. She has sensory sensitivities and social differences. She’s working toward a world of deep respect, where emotional skills help form justice, and love is more important than money.

She will be presenting on Emotional Healing by Breaking Open the Truth: Zine Making as Shared Authenticity.

She will be presenting during Session 4, 15:45 - 17:15 BST

Laura-Marie River Victor Peace Nopales

Jenna Freedman is the Curator of the Barnard Zine Library in New York. Her zines include the long-running Lower East Side Librarian, her 14-issue quaranzine Unprecedented, and a range of one-off zines about things like jury duty, niche cataloging topics, and her cat Bad Bad Leroy Brown.

She will be presenting on ​​Dissecting a Zine Corpus.

She will be presenting during Session 4 - 15:45 - 17:15 BST.

Jenna Freedman

Alex is a writer, workshopper, curator, and zine librarian based in Hull, UK. He is interested in the resistive power of collective creativity and the histories of local art making, and looks after the Hull Zine Library as a labour of love.

He will be presenting on Cherry-Coloured Zines: The Social Power of the Local Library

He will be presenting during Session 4 - 15:45 - 17:15 BST

Alex Stubbs

Jill Anderson

Jill is a senior research fellow, working alongside Helen Spandler and Tamsin Walker on the Wellcome funded MadZines project, based at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. Jill lives in Lancaster where she co-facilitates Critical and Creative Approaches to Mental Health Practice (CCrAMHP).  She is a member of the editorial group of Asylum magazine.

She will be presenting ‘Mad Zines Assemble’.

She will be presenting during Session 2 - 11.45 - 12.15 BST

Chella Quint

Chella Quint is an author, teacher, performer and founder of Period Positive, a menstrual literacy and education research project based in Sheffield. Chella wrote the zine Chart Your Cycle in 2005. She has been producing the zine series Adventures in Menstruating 2005 - present, and has performed an educational period comedy show of the same name based on her zines and research at the Edinburgh Fringe and around festivals across the UK and Europe. She recently proposed a Period Positive National Curriculum for England and recently wrote the popular books for kids and adults, Own Your Period and Be Period Positive.

Chella will be presenting Mini Zines for Maximum Menstrual Health: inclusive and empowering analogue approaches to digital privacy.

She will presenting during Session 3 - 14:00 - 15:30 BST.

Charissa Lucille

Charissa Lucille is a multimedia artist who earned their BFA in Journalism and Mass Communications from Arizona State University in 2014. They are currently sewing, self publishing, and running Wasted Ink Zine Distro.

Charissa will be co-facilitating the workshop ‘How To Run a Zine Distro’ at 18:30 BST.