I've been taking a book arts class this summer and our first assignment is a zine. How timely for a period of social unrest and general pandemic chaos?? My zine is an endearing story of friendship between my son, who is white, and his best friend, who is “mixed.” They have known each other since they were 5 & 6 months old and they have been the cutest friends for the past 2.5 years. I juxtaposed their developing friendship as the main content of the zine against the racial injustice experienced in greater doses by young Black boys and men. I chose to leave out the boy’s fathers because I didn’t want to make it super obvious that his best friend is mixed – I wanted the viewer to be slightly startled by the stark contrast of images and text. I am also not Black and I didn’t feel like I could tell the fear side of the story because it is not my story to tell as I cannot fully comprehend it given my privilege. inside hidden layers of text – not meant to be directly read in their entirety to protect privacy (sorry!) – links to the blogs & tweets are here and here and the article that the list of names came from is here “We are the same as mothers” – Jehava Brown & “…I am so sick and tired of the sensational question to Black parents: “What will you tell your black son to protect them from dying?” when nobody asks white parents: “What do you tell your white children to stop them from killing?” – Derecka Purnell @dereckapurnell The hidden part of the book (or the inside) contains a limited list of unarmed Black men & boys, under the age of 26, who have been shot and killed since 2014 – the youngest being just 12 years old (and there were at least 50 names). On top of the names are text messages between my son’s best friend’s mom and myself discussing the current events and what to do if the situation became threatening to their family. I also took quotes from blogs that she shared about how white moms can be allies for their Black children.
I decided to go with the hidden book because I didn’t want the text and images to be integrated – I wanted the viewer to feel like this was a cute little story and then discover the text separately. I think reading it this way relates to the way we don’t see social issues until they are brought to our attention, and even then, we can continue with our blinders on, if it doesn’t affect us directly. I chose to work in black & white and embrace the zine’s historical use of the photocopier. I had my son do the abstract mark making as the background and then I photocopied and collaged the photos. After I finished each page of the work, I uploaded them to photoshop, played with the contrast to give it a grainy photocopier feel, and then imported the images into inDesign for the final layout. I kind of like the idea that there is no actual original hand-made copy of this zine in its entirety and I think that adds to the meaning as we grapple with what to do moving forward. I currently work with themes of motherhood and storytelling and have become more interested in giving up control by working with my son and including his marks in my artwork, so those parts fit right into my current investigations. I don’t typically create work that is socially-minded; however, I just couldn’t get past what is going on right now and thinking about how to prepare/educate my son – I feel a sense of urgency more-so because his friend is at greater risk (I can’t even type those words without that knot in my throat). I also wanted to challenge myself to give a nod to the history of the riot grrrl zines by creating one that had a social justice message from a woman/mother’s perspective.
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