Wellness and Mental Health Zine – downloadable now!

Do Not Untimely Die is the name of a collaborative zine made at Augustine House on University Mental Health Day. During research sessions held earlier this year, students and staff explored the CCCU Archives and Special Collections, looking for material that resonated and inspired thoughts about views on Wellness and Mental Health. The title actually comes from an advert for cough medicine, and struck the group as a fitting title for the zine, capturing a combination of archaic phrasing, absurd comedy and medical hysteria that ran through all of our research.

We started each session with a mindful drawing exercise to check in and articulate how we were feeling that day, then perused the archives, looking out for things that caught our eye and provoked conversation on our themes. Vocabulary and words were stuck up on post-it notes, and people made notes about what each chunk of archival material made them think of. As a group we had many open discussions about the material, and more questions were posed than answered. Where did the phrase agony aunt come from? Have gender roles changed that much? Why do blackbirds have a such a bad reputation compared to other feathered friends – and why were they baked into a pie?

With these in mind, our making sessions ended up being a practical meditation with these ideas in our subconscious. They inform the frequently surreal collage of this material, as one of the primary zine making techniques – alongside colouring, erasure poetry and creative writing. Three CCCU students and alumni gave their personal introduction to the project, explaining their contributions. We hope you enjoy the end result of a process which allowed us to make connections between the past, present, and those made in the physical act of making.

You can download the zine here:

DO NOT UNTIMELY DIE! Zine Download Link