We are proud to present QTF – a twelve-day interdisciplinary programme and ongoing exhibition with a focus on zine-making in partnership with Manchester Writing School, Manchester School of Art, Manchester Poetry Library and the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI) drawing on a previous AHRC/GCRF project with community groups Artvism and StrongMinds in Kampala, Uganda.

The event will take place at Manchester Poetry Library led by poet and zine-maker Gloria Kiconco, who will be in residence throughout. The project draws on a project ‘Questioning the form’ which took place in Kampala in 2020, with two groups of women who experienced marginalisation. In the groups the women explored alternative identities, with a particular focus on what it is to ‘question’ the form, making zines to explore their identities. These zines are now coming to Manchester Poetry Library in the form of an exhibition exploring what it is to question the form. The QTF zines will be presented alongside zine projects by Gloria Kiconco that trace her practice from 2016 to 2021.

What is a zine? The zine is in itself an exercise in dismantling and reconstructing identities. It questions the ways in which identities are ‘boxed in’ as it were, and opens out a space to reflect and re-imagine. Zine-making is a utopian form, that lends itself to open communicational structures. Zine-making encapsulates this potential space – born from left-leaning home-made print making ‘fanzine’ activities – a zine can act as a form of protest as well as an artistic medium, and can be adapted and created using minimal technologies.

The QTF theme asks, what is opened up through the zine? Can the Poetry Library as zine change the way we are, we feel, we love?

Through a moving exhibition of zines, curated and collected, we will explore the form of the zine, and through a series of readings, workshops and conversations, the zine will be opened up in all its wonderful strangeness.

Please join us at Manchester Poetry Library at Manchester Metropolitan University to celebrate zine-making, poetry and questioning the zine form. Attendance is free and you can drop by any time during our opening hours.