When Khidr Collective met Over Here – by Heena

Shout out to all the excellent people I met from Khidr Collective just over a week ago. The collective want to help young people from Muslim backgrounds develop their creative and artistic skills. What they were saying sounded all too familiar to me. Younger people with BAME backgrounds often getting over-encouraged to become doctors, lawyers and accountants and go into similar ‘safe’ jobs. Hitting walls when trying to get elders at our community centres and places of worship to recognise that younger generations want to go into the arts and and could do with support. And the arts wants us too. They need us.

I love meeting people who not only have things in common with you, but want the same things as you, and take it upon themselves to try to make those changes. Like putting together a zine. The tradition of doing things yourself is one that I like very much.

I loved that the collective were on tour, even though there wasn’t a musical instrument between them and they weren’t performing anywhere. That’s the kind of tour I can get on board with. The group are based in the London area, but were travelling around the country to make connections and squeeze in a trip to the theatre before heading back down. They packed a a lot meetups in on their day in Manchester, appearing on the radio, interviewing local visual artist, @aymussa and then coming to meet me. We met in Rusholme in Jaffa, one of my favourite places to eat falafel and Arabic salad, then they asked me if I wanted to join them as they met up with Saffa in the city centre.  We all had a nice chat then joked about joining them on their next stop in Bradford, this group of brown creatives snaking through the north of England with the snake growing longer and longer at each stop.

Oh, and Khidr Collective Issue Two is not just beautiful, it’s also full of interesting work; poetry, illustration, interviews, articles and more.

https://www.facebook.com/KhidrCollective/

http://khidrcollective.bigcartel.com/

Meet the Organisers: Part 2

Saffa

  1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
    I’m Saffa Khan, Pakistani illustrator and printmaker based in Manchester, UK.  I make zines and rage against machines. I explore themes of identity, culture, race and mental health in my work and turn my daily feelings into self-published printed matter. I also run @tenderhandspress and @makestuffclub
  2. How did you get into zines?
    I was introduced to zines when I became part of the ever-growing online DIY arts and feminist community around 2009. Ever since then I contributed to zines and made my own about home, belongingness and identity.
  3. Tell us a bit about your favourite zine/s by people of colour.
    Diaspora Drama zine and OOMK are two of my favourite zines by people of colour.
  4. Finally, what is your favourite snack?
    I LOVE coconut and dried mango chips!

Sandy

1 .Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Sandy O! I’m an activist, zine maker, DIY lover/do-er, facilitator and student from Manchester.
2. How did you get into zines?
I think I heard about riot grrl/feminist zines on Tumblr. I spent my last few years in school wishing I was part of an alternative DIY community. I got to curate/edit my first zine at uni, along with a zine launch and it was an amazing and stressful experience that got me hooked on collaborative arts and alternative printing.
3. Tell us a bit about your favourite zine/s by POC
Some of my current are:
Black Fly, an amazing zine about race, bodies, love and sexual health
QTIPOC Assemble, a zine imagining qtipoc with superpowers !!
Poor Lass, a zine about working class Northern lasses
4. Finally, what is your favourite snack?
Crisps 5eva!

Meet the Organisers

  1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
    I’m Seleena, zine maker, textile artist, tap dancer, soap seller and collector of tat.
  2. How did you get into zines?
    I got into zines a few ways I think, reading about them in the back of my sister’s Select magazines in the late 90s, being an avid reader of Teletext and having loads of penpals. It’s what teens did for fun before the internet!
  3. Tell us a bit about your favourite zine/s by people of colour.
    One of my favourite zines is Shotgun Seamstress by Osa Atoe (member of short-lived black punk band New Bloods and now ace ceramicist) and is a zine about black punks by black punks. It features interviews, reviews, and more on black punks of yesteryear and black punks of today. There’s a book anthology of the zine too.
  4. Finally, what is your favourite snack?
    Crisps forever, IDST.

 

  1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
    I’m Melissa. I love reading and writing, and watching Shonda Rimes TV shows. I work with refugees and I sing pop songs in She Choir Manchester.
  2. How did you get into zines?
    I got into zines through my friend who is a long time zinester. We made a zine about procrastination and it was so fun.  I tend to submit contributions to zines, rather than putting out my own because I never get round to it!
  3. Tell us a bit about your favourite zine/s by people of colour.
    My favourite zines by poc are Brown Girl by Seleena Laverne Daye and Black Women and Self Care by Naomi Moyer. Both really important zines that made me feel my experiences on being a person of colour matter.
  4. Finally, what is your favourite snack?
    I love biscuits  — especially ones that can be dunked in a cup of tea and not fall to pieces.

  1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
    I’m Heena. I like cycling, cooking and talking to people.  I can sometimes be tempted to write, perform and host quizzes.
  2. How did you get into zines?
    It was basically through helping to organise a Ladyfest in Manchester back in 2003. Through that, I met people who made and sold their own zines, but did a bunch of other stuff by themselves as well such as putting on their own gigs, discos / club nights and queer cafes and alternative gatherings. There would be zines available at a lot of these events, and suddenly they were everywhere I went. Before then, I thought the only people who made zines were people who magically had access to bands I liked and could get interviews with them.  I was so pleased when I found out how easy it was to make a zine.
  3. Tell us a bit about your favourite zine/s by people of colour.
    Race Revolt, not just because I’ve contributed to it :).  A good friend of mine started it in response to racism she’d witnessed in activist communities and put out four or five issues. I love how new people are still discovering it, even though the last one came out over ten years ago.
  4. Finally, what is your favourite snack?
    Sev mamra, which is a savoury mix of puffed rice mixed with thread-like gram flour noodles. I’m a bit of a purist, so I prefer the one without peanuts in it.

 

We are Over Here

We are Over Here.

We write, draw, paint, create, survive.

We see gaps and fill them.

We speak for ourselves.

We exist where the mainstream fails to meet our needs.