CW1.2: Documentary -- LGBT zine. (Keep reading for information)
For my documentary project, I looked at the LGBT nightlife in London and the fact that it was disappearing. I wanted to continue in the same vein of work, so I looked at documenting the spaces and people that make the space “safe” and “alive” as the task was to produce a documentary production that comes from a personal observation.
I looked at figures from the Government website for London, at how Her Upstairs had recently been shut down without any warning reported by Pink News, and at Business Insider’s LGBT venue map to prepare myself for this topic and to gain more insight - through this, I found out that London had lost 58% of it’s LGBT venues since 2006, which seemed like a statistically shocking number to me.
I contacted a number of drag queens who worked locally, and constructed an online zine (which I’m currently only hosting on Tumblr due to my Issuu site login not currently working).
Overall, I think the zine looks pretty good. I’m happy with the art (of the queens/kings interviewed) I created and I’m happy with the content of the interviews I conducted, and I’m very proud of myself for pushing myself to create such a big project digitally when digital art is something that kind of scares me a little. I think it really helped me to expand my world view, and create a personal piece that has a very clear resonance with a community I was a big part of.
