Invincible Youth

My interest in zines as a form of art came from my involvement in the Newcastle independent music scene, when I released my first zine Grim Up North. As well as this, growing up in the North post-thatcher meant I and many other people have very little access to art. This has made me want to make my work accessible for anyone to see, touch or own. Therefore, zines, which I can print and post or distribute online, are a way for my art to be accessed without much cost or needing to travel to a gallery.
I created 2 zines for this project, using photos I’d taken by the sea during lockdown where I was thrust back to the angst of being a teenager; drinking by a fire pit on the beach rather than in a pub. Germ Free Adolescence was screen printed onto newsprint, to emulate 70s punk zines and for affordability, by layering 3 colours in an intentionally off-set way. This created a dizzying effect that almost hurts the eyes in how abrasive it is. A quote from X-ray Spex’s song Germ Free Adolescent conveyed the high emotions of adolescence and the added stress and trapped feeling of the global pandemic. The poster was a parody of vintage ‘visit the coast’ posters, I used the style to criticise the government’s handling of the situation and the ‘business as usual’ British attitude.
Invincible Youth appears simpler, the photos in black and white, alongside yellow and pink. It was risograph printed giving it the natural imperfections I wanted. Its poster was inspired by 1980’s feminist posters alongside a quote from John Green’s Looking for Alaska which I found perfectly captures the emotions of being a teenager. Both posters use the same photo of me, both edited and distorted so I am unrecognisable, merely a figure lighting a cigarette. This stops the pieces from being exclusively about my experiences, instead the shared nostalgia and struggles of adolescence in a small place alongside the context of the pandemic.
These zines developed into thinking about other unconventional ways art is distributed and exhibited. I printed off many copies of both posters with different colours of Invincible Youth and covered the walls in my flat with them choosing to exhibit and document them in a place they belonged, like band posters on a teenager wall.
This inspired me to exhibit the posters in a more public setting as a way to have them reach a wider audience than the zine alone. I used wheat paste to put them up around London, under bridges and along the South Bank. The posters felt as if they belonged there, and invoke the eras that inspired them. The public setting was a perfect way to disseminate my work to as many people as possible. When they were up, I filmed walking past them to replicate how they would be interacted with in the street, leaving the sound in for this effect.