#35: Power, Perspective and The Punk Stuff

lines, zines, maps, and female friendship

Dear reader,

I spend a lot of time talking about visual communication, literacy, and intelligence (Context: I own an art studio running workshops for those who aren’t really the artsy type). This happens in watercolour, line art, portraiture and more. Usually I try to keep things very basic - because simplicity is rarely a bad thing.

Yet all of these ideas operate in complex machinery all around us - in the design of your granola packaging, the Pantone colour of the year, all the way to advertisements and news. I’m sure most of us have a complicated relationship with that last one, with its fearmongering headlines and openly biased reporting world over. However, seeing the way young people across the world are persistent in their fight for a brighter future, one that is repeatedly stolen from us, has given me so much hope. They have shown, and continue to show us, that change starts from one individual - and then it cannot be contained.

Power in Eight Pages

Okay Kaav, that’s really nice and all, but how can I possibly fix the world as one person?

You do what you can. You redirect your attention to the things you can solve. (Preachy, I know.) More and more I find that hosting the monthly writer’s meet at a nearby coffeeshop is turning into the best day of said month - if anything it just gives everyone a solid chunk of time to dedicate to our creativity. Last weekend, we delved into zines, zine-making, zine culture, and its super punk roots.

Our little cutie pie zines! Picture by H. Valenzona.

Joy as Resistance

It’s Mother’s Day, and a recent public speakers’ club meeting got me feeling all mushy gushy. If there’s anyone who taught me that all teeth smiling, roar-laughter, and giddy giggles can run circles around the world, it’s my Mum. If you’re feeling particularly anti-establishment, dance your joy back into you: Have a listen to this super vibey playlist I found, and if like me, you love the art, here’s the artist.

Nothing Left but Everything

The past few years have put female friendships in the spotlight - a tough thing to do when there’s also a resurgence of Y2K fashion, culture and ideals. Read: Barbie feminism living alongside the Olivia Rodrigo/Sabrina Carpenter ‘rivalry’.

As a kid, I was definitely a victim of hypermasculine worldviews, viewing female friendships as dramatic and shallow. Meme culture, rage comics and its distributing platforms like Ragestache made that doubly damaging.

But this renaissance of girl groups and female centered friendships has challenged systems at grassroots levels, and like a cheerleading formation, change ripples its way up to the top. It might be gentle, subconscious, even - but never not worth it. And if you do it with enough intent, with enough persistence, we’re witnessing in real time how institutions crumble.

But back to visual communication and all that good stuff. What is a dot? What is a line? Is it something that brings us together or carves in separation? And then, depending on your answer, what is a map?

If you had to draw the gridlines, carve out roads, make a city out of your heart, I wonder what parts of it would have dimly lit streets, barbed wire fences, playgrounds you haven’t looked at in years. There’s too many of the same people responsible for drawing out maps these days. Redraw them, make them yours - like this design researcher did with Banerghatta National Park and its native inhabitants.

When it comes to abandoned places, I know mine would be vast swathes of my past - that place can be a real prison. Thankfully like any spaces, time shifts it into something unlikely - and perhaps even forgiving. This week I had an unexpected encounter with my childhood best friend - and a dam that hoarded stories from 10 years ago suddenly broke open. It is a beautiful thing to give your younger self forgiveness, and even more wonderful we recognise that collectively. That way, all our futures are nothing but limitless possibility.

Zine-Tastic Links:

1. This archive full of revolutionary zines

2. POC Zine Project - which is exactly what it sound like it is

3. And finally, how to make your own zine

Sending you power, and infinite hope.

Kaav