Are you curious about what lurks in the hidden shelves of our Special Collections? Do you want to have a go at making a zine? Or has your research lead you to exploring any number of queer theories? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes!’, you might want to get involved in our Queering The Archive zine project – and this blog will explain how.

Queering The Archive will take place in two stages; the first will be exploring our Archive and Special Collection for material that is of queer interest, the second will be creative responses to this material to make the collaborative zine itself in time for Canterbury Pride 2024.

Initial Research

The first research phase will be an open ended exploration, using many ‘queer’ techniques; instinct, intuition, gossip, free association, queer futurity, personal resonance – in order to create selections from our archive, using any research techniques our volunteers may be working on. It will be an opportunity to share ideas while looking at material that is largely absent of queer content, in a space where we can form our own connections to the material.

If you want to take part, please do join us on the following research session dates:

Weds 13 March (12 – 4pm)

Location: Bridge Seating Area in Augustine House

Friday 15 March (12-4pm)

Location: AH1.21 in Augustine House

Weds 24 April (12 – 4pm)

Location: AH1.21

You won’t need to bring anything with you, though if you have any ideas, theories or research methods that you are particularly interested in, the session will include time to talk about how to go about finding ‘queer’ material and what this will mean for the zine. One starting point could be The National Archive’s Guide to Searching for records of sexuality and gender identity history, or Jeanne Scheper’s essay Zine Pedagogies : Students as Critical Makers. Once we have a selection of photographed material from the archives, we will then we have 3 weeks of zine making workshops.

Zine Workshops

These will take place on:

Weds 1^st May (10am – 12)

Location: AH2.23

Weds 8^th May (10am – 12)

Location: AH2.23

Weds 15^th May (10am – 12)

Location: AH2.23

These will take place in Augustine House and we will be sharing our knowledge of queer zines, looking at some examples, thinking about different making techniques and responding to the materials that have been discovered during the research process. Feel free to bring any zine making tricks and techniques with you to share with the group! We’ll provide the materials and plenty of ideas and texts to help engage with the material our researchers have unearthed from the archive.

To take part – whether you can make one session or the whole schedule – simply let us know that you’re coming. And if you have any questions about the project or want to find out more, do email us with the subject line ‘Queering The Archive’.

Queering The Archive Event Page.