DIY Cultures 2017: Zines, comics, activist day festival

PROGRAMME
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DIY Cultures 2017 day festival: Zines, Artists’ Books and Comics, 12pm - 7pm, Sunday 14th May, Rich Mix, London
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DIY Knowledge Exhibition: 3rd May - 2nd June, Rich Mix, Lower Cafe Gallery
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DIY Cultures fair is back for its 5th year on Sunday 14th May to takeover all 4 floors of Rich Mix. DIY Cultures is an annual day festival exploring intersections of art and activism, running since 2013. The programme consists of a zine fair, exhibitions, workshops, contemporary craft, panel discussions, comic illustration, video art and digital animation exploring DIY practice. The event has established itself as a leading national forum for artists-run initiatives and alternative publishing. The event distinguishes itself by by its commitment to Black and people of colour empowerment and centralising marginalised histories and subcultures such as neurodiversity, diaspora stories, prisoner solidarity, radical mental health and Muslim communities under the War on terror.

This year’s event is bigger than ever with more than 90 stalls showcasing the best in independent publishing and stands as Rich Mix’s most-attended event of the year. The festival extends to a 4 week exhibition DIY Knowledge running from 3rd May until 2nd June in Lower Cafe Gallery. The curators have commissioned outdoor art, interactive animation and architectural collective Involve to make a communal table.

This years highlights include:
+Icon SAFFIYAH KHAN - the lady who dared stare the EDL in the face giving closing speech on Solidarty at 6.40pm
+ New film commission on how zines helped Hillsborough justice before the mainstream media (with archival collection of Liverpool zines under under Thatcher)
+ Zines East Africa showcase how DIY Culture influence spread to Africa with Zines from Tanzania & Uganda exhibition display
+ OOMK Malaysia self-publishing project
+ Book launch of Shy Radicals : the Antisystemic politics of the militant introvert - described as “the Black Panthers of the introvert-class” by DIY Culture co-founder Hamja Ahsan
+ Life-size clay sculpture of Theresa May by May Ayres
+ Longtable on Neurodiversity with Daniel Olivier & Guiliane Kinouni
+ Chicago as DIY Cultures twin city with a collection
+ Artist taxi driver on new BREXIT movie BREXSHIT
+ Kevin Sampson of Hillsborough Voice on learning from the Thatcher era
+ Reclaim Holloway on turning criminal justice into social justice + a live broadcast soapbox run by Clapham Film Unit
+ Autism arts reconsidered with Paul Wady’s Guerilla Aspies & Shaun May

DIY Knowledge exhibition - Lower Café Gallery (3rd May to 2nd June)
DIY Knowledge is a multimedia group exhibition that explores DIY Cultures ongoing concerns with self-education, information and news beneath the mainstream, imparting knowledge from margins. The exhibition will feature short film, comics, infographics, digital art and zine archival collections. It features 6 new commissions.

Artists: Leila Abdelrazaq (Chicago), Gemma Anderson, Sang Mun
Collectives: Keep It Complex, Antiuniversity, Bookstop Sanaa Art Library & Creative Learning Space (Tanzania), Temporary Services (Chicago), Turn Your PHD into a zine (Performed by Nina Power), Other Asias (toybox lexicon)

DIY Cultures 2017, 12pm - 7pm, Sunday 14th May
Day Festival Timetable

Talks Panels - Main Stage
1:00pm Theresa May & the Others
2.30pm Shy, Autistic, Introvert Resistance and Identity
4:00pm BREXIT: Creative DIY responses
5.30pm Detention & Deportation & Prisoner Solidarity
6.40pm SAFFIYAH KHAN closing speech on Solidarity - the anti-racist icon dared stare the EDL into the face

Participatory Longtable (Upstairs in Venue 1 Theatre - 4th floor)
4.30pm Neurodiversity Long table (Daniel Olivier, Guiliane Kinouni, Shaun May of Autism Arts Festival)

Workshops - Venue 1 Theatre - 4th floor
1:30pm Working the phones - Jamie Woodcock
1:30pm Origami mandala cards – Origami 4 Fun
2:30pm Hip Hop Garden - May Project Gardens
2:30pm Cognitive Workshop - Lauren Baxter
3:30pm Create a pop up disobedient exhibition – Clara Palliard (PCS union Culture Group, using examples from Disabled People Against Cuts, BP-or-not-BP)
3:30pm Black Arts Magazines with Stuart Hall Library

Film and Animation programme - Venue 2 - 4th floor
Byba Dolby Sakula, Map Squad, Kahori Kamiya, Stacy Bias, Ursula Pelczar, Gio Lingao, Beth Sabey, Rozine Jahfar, Duncan Poulton, Daniel Wechsler, Sharmaine Kwan, Mab Jones & Alex Taylor, R.L. Wilson, Jordan Antonowicz-Behnan, Barnie Emma, Tito Aderemi-Ibitola, Jose Saravia

Day festival art commissions:
Communal zine table commission: Involve
Interactive art commission: “Run to Run” by Hannah Whittaker
Outdoor commission: “State of the Nation Digital Soap Box” by Clapham Film Unit

Prep-Up - Camberwell MA Visual Arts: Book Arts exhibition - Venue 2 - 4th floor

Zine Fair Exhibitors: Come and browse over 90 exhibitors’ stalls and buy original publications direct from the artists.

Accumulate
Achey Breaky Heart
Aleesha Nandhra
Antiuniversity
Apples to Zines
Artists in Transit
Ayo & Oni Oshodi
BA Illustration / University of Northampton
Black Lodge Press
BlopShop (Alex Hahn Publishing)
BSS Art Library
Book Works
BORN n BREAD
British Values
Centrala
Chicago Zine Table
Clod Magazine
Consented
Cool Schmool Zines
Craftivist Collective
Dead Trees & Dye
Decadence
DIY Space For London
Editions of You + The Lumen Lake
Elizabeth Lander
Emix Regulus
Erin Aniker
Fennertown
Fierce Brownz
Freer Ideas
Girls Club
Grrrl Zine Fair
Homie House Press
Housmans Bookshop
HYSTERIA
IHRC
Jacob V Joyce
Joseph P Kelly & Laura Callaghan (1 table shared)
Kat Rose
Lucy May
Mark Pawson/Disinfotainment
Michael Adebayo (Thunderbolts Comics UK)
Mike Medaglia
Millie Nice & Georgia Haire
MonoRhetorik / R/NDOM
Monster Emporium Press
Numbi Arts
One Beat Zines
OOMK
Orlando
Other Asias
Past Tense
Pen Fight Distro
Poesie Grenadine
BUSSA
Reconnecting Arts
Richy K. Chandler
Road Gals (LDN)
Rope Press
Rudy Loewe
Sadie St . Hilaire / Sadsthil
Save Our Souls mag
Shake!/PLANK
Skin Deep
Soofiya
Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives (Darren Cullen)
STAPLE Magazine
Studio Operative
Sugar Paper
Sula Collective
Synchronise Witches Press
Taming Lions
The Feminist Library
The Market
TOKEN Magazine
Typical Girls Magazine
Uhm! zines
Keep it Complex
Variant space
Dog Section Press
Walden Press
Wallis Eates

Free Communal Zine Shop:
This year’s communal zine table will be made by Involve.

Organisers biographies - the co-founder and curatorial collective DIY Cultures:

Sofia Niazi is editor of muslim female led art and activist zine OOMK and co-founder of Rabbits Road Press, a community Risograph print studio in Manor Park. She is an artist and illustrator and was recently awarded an Arts and Social Practice Fellowship at the University of Chicago. www.sofianiazi.co.uk

Hamja Ahsan is a writer, multi-media artist, curator & human rights campaigner. His artwork and projects have been exhibited widely nationally & internationally from Tate Britain to Gwangju Biennale, Korea. He has been nominated for a Liberty Human Rights Award 2013 for running Free Talha Ahsan campaign against US-UK Extradition law & solitary Confinement under the War on Terror. His debut book Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert published by Book Works will be launched DIY Cultures 2017. He tweets: @hamjaahsan

Helena Wee is an artist whose animation work is collected within the BFI National Archive. She was shortlisted for the Bar Tur award in 2011 and has exhibited at Victoria and Albert Museum, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Tate, QUAD and in Basel among other places. She has conceived and co-curated projects for Secret Cinema and Art Licks.

Contact:
For further information, photographs, images & media interviews with curators email us- diycultureszac@gmail.com