Zines. I have never actually made or participated in a zine before this class, thought I have definitely been exposed to them in the past. Largely underground in the 90s, zines resonate a feeling of nostalgia and community for me. A zine makes me feel connected to my queer family. That feeling of grungy dirtiness that it feels as you flip the pages, no matter how new or old, this engagement was particularly homey for me. I think there is a lot of power in group narrative, and how we each choose to visually represent a similar experience or idea. I am really looking forward to seeing our completed “Exhaustion” zine that we created as a class, to see if similar imagery emerges throughout our pieces.
I would like to consider the idea of zines in work with older adults experiencing Bipolar and related disorders. Drawing from the Leone (2020) text, zines many times focus around social activism and engagement, and are praised for their do-it-yourself (DIY) nature. I believe this DIY capacity could allow for engagement on a variety of levels of the ETC, depending on what media one should choose to use. I had the opportunity to lead a very specific art therapy group for persons experiencing hearing voices as a symptom of schizophrenia at my first practicum placement. I mention this because part of the power of that group came from the collective ability to talk about and process similar experiences surrounding hearing voices. I believe that working with a group of older adults, possibly in a residential facility, could lead to this similar collective experience. Houpt et al. (2016) discusses the use of zines with older adults as a way of chronicling every day experiences in a nursing home. Similarly, I propose that it could be powerful to create a zine with a group of older adults experiencing Bipolar and related disorders to document their lived experiences as it pertains to living in this residential facility with their disorder. This could then be distributed to other residents and staff as a means of education and advocacy for these persons. This could allow for expression, connection, advocacy, and peer relationship and community building. This could also empower other groups or persons to advocate for themselves in a similar way.
References
Houpt, K., Balkin, L. “A.”, Broom, R. H., Roth, A. G., & Selma, . (2016). Anti-Memoir: Creating Alternate Nursing Home Narratives Through Zine Making. Art Therapy, 33(3), 128-137. doi:10.1080/07421656.2016.1199243
Leone, L. (Ed.). (2020). Craft in Art Therapy: Diverse Approaches to the Transformative
Power of Craft Materials and Methods. Routledge
