Information Lives in DIY Culture

Join us at SODA (School of Digital Arts) for Information Lives in DIY Culture.

This is a day-long event convened by Dr Kirsty Fife, explores the relationship between DIY cultures (grassroots and political cultures and practices) and information, archives, libraries and heritage.

Examples of this include (by aren’t limited to!) setting up physical and/or digital grassroots libraries and archives (e.g., Salford Zine Library, Manchester Digital Music Archive), collaborations between institutions and DIY cultural organisers (e.g., People’s History Museum and Over Here Zine Fest), archives of grassroots culture and social movements), and people with a background in DIY culture working in information organisations and the information sector.

The event will be informal and different to more traditional academic conferences. Anyone is welcome to attend, including people involved in DIY cultures (for instance musicians, zine makers, organisers), people who work or volunteer in information organisations (libraries, archives, museums and more!) and people doing research (in universities or any other spaces!). This event aims to bring together people in each of these spaces so that we can learn from each other, share skills and knowledge, and make connections that help sustain our endeavours in the future.

Programme overview

09:30-10:00 – Registration and refreshments

10:00-10:15– Introduction and overview of the day

Kirsty Fife (they/them, Manchester Metropolitan University)

10:15-11:45

Panel: Queer archiving

CJ de Barra (Nottingham Queer History Archive, they/them): How not to start an archive: how radical archives are documenting queer life.

Monika Rodriguez (she/her) and Michael Pierce (he/they) (Cinema Nation) – From Attics to Screenings – Discovering DIY archives

Chloe Turner (Museum of Transology, they/them) – Against Inclusion: Trans Museological Practices in an Era of Disinformation

Workshop

Morrigan Ivy Dann (she/they) – Zines As Sites of Archiving

11:45-12:00: Break

12:00-13:30 – Panels and Workshops

Panel: Remaking

Kim Foale (Geeks for Social Change, she/they) – Building DIY technology infrastructure for community liberation

Ben Perkins (Another Subculture, he/him) – Another Subculture and Punk Evidence (why make a zine when there’s Instagram?)

Shaoli Choudhury (British Library, she/her) – Bridging the Island: The Reimagining of Heritage Spaces

Workshop

Vicky Stevenson (Pen Fight Distro/Salford Zine Library, she/her) – Zinester speed-friending

Panel: Zines

Chella Quint (she/her) – 20 Years of Menstrual Zine Making

Elizabeth Gibson (they/them) – Reclaiming Queer Healthcare: Zines as Testimonies and Tools for Change

Martin Smith (Manchester Metropolitan University, he/him) – Take This With You and Live It Somewhere Else

Workshop

Liv Owens (they/them) and Lily Bichard-Collins – Data Sculptures

13:30-14:30:Lunch

14:30-16:00: Panel: Community-driven practice

Alice Parsons (Bradford LGBTQ+ Archive/Castles in the Sky, she/her) – Collecting the collective – an interactive talk and workshop unpacking the work of the Bradford LGBTQ+ archive

Isaac Heller (he/they) – Archiving DIY: Resistant World-Making in Queer Archival Space

Cameron Huggett (he/him) – Voice of the Fans: A Retrospective

14:30-15:15: Screening and discussion

Peter Shukie – Dirt Poets and the Flyover Gallery: Creating Outside the Conventional

15:30-16:15: Workshop

Amie Kirby – All Flames, Big and Little: Community-Led Working Class History at the WCML

16:15-16:30: Closing comments

Kirsty Fife (Manchester Metropolitan University, they/them)

All day activities

• Stalls from MURMUR and the Working Class Movement Library
• Pen Fight Distro will be launching a special anniversary event to celebrate running for a decade, including a zine launch
• Salford Zine Library will be hosting a pop-up with materials from their collection