For this Zine I chose the topic of multiracialism. Although I had done research (asking questions to an audience, looking at books such as Part Asian, 100%Hapa by Kip Fulbeck) I had not planned the content or layout before I was due to complete it. This meant
that I ended up having to rush my work, which resulted in a inconsistent publication. I liked some of the pages (such as the ones enlarged) however I could have worked harder experiementing in order to create a theme for the whole Zine.
Due to my disatisfaction of my previous Zine, I decided to edit it completely in the hope of improving it. I chose one particular aspect of my last publication (people and their heritage), and expanded on that. I decided to keep it visually quite simple and clean cut as I believe this looks more appealing and gives it a consistency throughout. I
played around a lot with the layout and images, comparing throughout, until I was happy with it. Even the colours reflect the mixture of heritages. This time I added information about each country, without mentioning the name of the country to add a little fun and engage the audience.
Malcishia’s Zine
I found editing someone’s else Zine very enjoyable, although slightly challenging at first because I liked her original publication. However understanding that it wasn’t about improving but simply changing by picking and choosing etc helped me be more confortable with this brief. Out of a few options decided to go for Mr Happy Man also known as Johnny Barnes, famous for greeting
strangers by the side of the road in Bermuda for the last 20 years. The concept I went for was an instruction manual, teaching the audience how to be a Mr Happy Man. To achieve this I did research on Johnny Barner himself and body language, to better understand the effects of certain body movements towards people, such as having open arms.
Lizzie Ridout
For this last project I decided to look at hair from a historical, scientific, cultural and artistic point of view. I wanted to expand my knowledge as well as avoiding narrow and predictable routes for the development of my work. I visited the Natural History Museum as well as the
Photographer’s gallery for inspiration. I began my work by looking at pattern in animal hair, tradional pattern and even patterns in food and experimented by replacing human hair (which we are used to seeing) with those patterns.
I experimented with lots of techniques, which developed a curiosity for the end possibilities. I became very interested in mixing the scientific and artistic aspect, so I created a hair candle (click here to
view the video), made some lino prints of a magnified hair, I also made a hair fossil using wax, I asked an audience what was they first thought of when they heard the word hair and made a collage with all their words.