Following on from last year’s Queering The Archives Zine Project, in 2025 we’re focusing on Wellbeing and Mental Health. This is your opportunity to take a peek into our Archives and Special Collections, meet new people and pick up some new skills in a casual setting. If you’re thinking about doing some archival research this is a creative introduction and will lead up to a collaborative zine making session, where you can allow your artistic and researcher sides to flourish.

The initial two research sessions will involve handling archival material and searching for anything that might connect to the topic of Wellbeing and Mental Health, such as imagery, text, quotes and medical advice (which is frequently alarming and out of date, but provides a fascinating insight into the thinking of the time). In these first sessions we’ll be collecting and photographing suitable material to print out and use in the zine. Both the research sessions and zine making will take place in Augustine House:

Research Sessions

Tuesday 25^th February, 2-5pm AH1.41 – Boardroom

Monday 3^rd March, 2-5pm AH2.23 – Flexible Space

Zine Making

The final session will be Zine Making, as part of that month’s Stressless activities, and will involve creative/written responses to the collected archive research material, alongside collaging, poetry writing and any responses that fit onto a A4 piece of paper.

Thursday 13^th March, 2-5pm Stressless Area, 2^nd Floor of Augustine House.

All CCCU students are welcome to participate in either the research sessions or zine making, and no previous archival or zine making experience is needed.

If you want to find out more about what’s in our archives, take a look at: The A – Z of our special collections, and if you have any questions about the sessions, just email us!

---

Image: An illustration titled ‘Convalescence’ from Girl’s Own paper (1893), held in the CCCU archives.