Journal 7
Material: Zines
Population: Adolescents
Diagnosis: Feeding and Eating Disorders
When creating my zine page about our theme of “exhaustion” I used a digital program called Procreate. I have been experimenting with this program all summer and really enjoy how easy it is to make and share art with others by being able to send the digital image. I also thought that since we were making the zine black and white this would be a great opportunity to use the different textural brushes available on Procreate. When I thought about the theme, what came to mind was static on a tv screen. This quarter and just the pandemic, in general, have felt extremely draining but also so mundanely overwhelming I feel as though I am floating in this very busy intense space but doing nothing. I am very intrigued at how zines can be used as political and social activism and making a zine about the pandemic is a way to express common experiences and struggles. This was a very cognitive process for me and leaned very left on the ETC continuum. Digital art-making has allowed me to access this part of my artistic self that is not as natural for me.
For my population, I chose to explore making zines with adolescents with eating disorders. I think zine making is a very natural medium for the adolescent population as the art form itself has roots in anti-establishment and activist circles. Houpt et al. discuss the role of zine-making throughout the 1960s-1990s with the accessibility of printing (p.130). The authors point to zines being able to give “a voice to the underrepresented,” (p.130). The population of adolescents, who often feel powerless and pushed aside by authority, is appropriate for this type of creation as it can give them a defined space, held by the zine itself to express their “underrepresented” voice. This would be permission to go against the boundaries given to them by the adult world as they straddle the transition between it and their childhood. I have a specific idea surrounding the diagnosis of eating disorders and zines. Eating disorders rarely happen in isolation. They are often comorbid with depression and/or anxiety disorders. They often are reinforced by the client’s context or social/political environment.
Marshall & Rogers discuss the concept of “cultural jamming” in terms of youth homelessness (2017). I believe that the concept and practice could be employed very well with the population of adolescents with eating disorders. Cultural jamming is defined as “a form of social activism usually associated with revising and subverting familiar tests to make socio-political commentary,” (p.29). Examples are given like transforming “children’s ABC books, public service announcements, and song lyrics” (p.29). For this population, I believe it would be interesting to take advertisements, songs, slogans and even images that have triggered or contributed to the context of the group or client’s eating disorders and alter them. This could be through collage, through painting over, or ripping and reforming. These could then be made into pages collected into a zine which the group or individual could decide a title for and distribute as they saw fit. I believe one of the hardest things for most people I have known with eating disorders is how difficult it is to be in recovery when everything about America’s culture surrounding food and image is continually present, in your face, and the opposite of what you need to heal and remain healthy. Shame is everywhere. By transforming the narrative or even visually obliterating it, the group or client can put something out into the media that is what they need to continue recovery. They are essentially making their own resource.
References
Houpt, K., Balkin, L. A., & Roth & Selma, A. G. (2016). Anti-Memoir: Creating Alternate Nursing Home Narratives Through Zine Making. Art Therapy, 33(3), 128-137.
Marshall, E., & Rogers, T. (2017). Youth, Poetry, and Zines: Rewriting the Streets as Home. Bookbird,55(2), 28-36.
