HOW DO MAKE THIS HAPPEN IN WITH YOUNG PEOPLE IN CHICAGO?!?

I'm really interested in creating a Culture Jamming project with high school teens as part of my thesis project. Where might I begin? It's not going to be with queer youth; although as an activist and ally I would love to. Any idea for models on Culture Jamming project - historical and present - that you recommend?!?

Queer West Shout Youth Program


“ShOUT is an Unconference”

The Program offers Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Intersexed, Queer, Questioning and Two-Spirited (LGBTTIQQ2) youth and their friends and allies (ages 20 to 30 something) residing in West-Central Toronto with a focus on Parkdale, an innovative series of live monthly events that aim to stimulate a needed community dialogue on a wide range of pertinent topics to them.

Each month a wide range of topics pertinent to young adults with an emphasis on the theme of gender and sexuality in the arts and in culture in doing so, ShOUT! provides a safe, supportive and enriching context in which its participants can foster new knowledge, skills, and above all, meaningful relationships in their community.

ShOUT! Queer West Young Adult (Un)Conference Series
Presents…
MAKE CULTURE JAM!!

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn
is welcome and invited to join the discussion on…
Guerrilla Art, Media-Making and Creative Resistance

“As consumers of empowerment, our autonomy is only expressed through the act of choosing. By creating new choices for ourselves, and expanding opportunities for empowerment outside of the consumer sphere, we can be activists in the best sense of the word.”
~Carly Stasko

In her article, Action Grrrls in the Dream Machine,
Part of Turbo Chicks: Talking Young Feminisms (Sumach Press 2001)


Using the culture-jamming inspiration of our participating guerilla artists and independent media-makers, our discussion tonight will focus on a plethora of subversive expressions (zine-making, graffiti, stencil and sticker art, print, performance and blogging, are a few examples) through which marginalized folk exert their voices and insert themselves into a cultural landscape where they are seldom seen, heard or validated.
Together, we will explore the extent to which these creative practices work as a “queer” tactic of resistance and as a process of personal and political transformation and healing.


Discussion Sparkers

1) First and foremost, what exactly IS a Culture Jam?
(hint: think about the multiple meanings of “jam” as a metaphor for what a culture jam might aim to accomplish)
i—a sweet preservative, ii—a predicament, iii—a blockage wedged into the machinery

2) What makes a particular Jam successful and why? Do all examples of parody and satire necessarily count as jams?

3) Feminist artist and academic, Allyson Mitchell, has called writings on public spaces by lesbians and feminists and other forms of political graffiti “emergency story-telling”. Why do you think the impulse to tell our stories is so urgent? In what ways does the exercise of personal narrative, which we see in a variety of jamming mediums (including zines, and blogs) function as a potent political tool?

4) What is a “zine”? The “DIY-Movement”? and “craftivism”? and what is their relationship to an anti-corporate/anti-capitalist politic and sub-culture?

5) Many jammers and independent cultural producers, work to reconfigure, denaturalize, mess with, and “queer” conventions that dictate who gets legitimate space carved out in urban environments, who really belongs there, and whose voices are authorized to speak and be heard. Considering this, how are the artistic processes and methods used by jammers as important as the messages themselves that they communicate?
For example, think about why a jammer would choose a particular site (either physical, visual or virtual) as the setting for their jam. Why is it significant that zines are often hand-written rather than typed? How can scissors and glue be political tools as much as they are crafting instruments? How does a xerox machine function to legitimate the illegitimate?

6) Some critics may see zine making and blogging and artistic expression in general as merely a narcissistic catharsis for the self indulgent, rather than as a form of politics. To what degree can the various creative resistance practices we’ve discussed, actually be reframed as a valid form of activism, despite that that they may not enact policy change directly?

7) Toronto culture jammer, and media tigress, Carly Stasko, implied in the opening epigraph (see above) that empowerment is a commodity to be consumed. What does she mean by this? How can we develop a critically queer eye for the ways in which LGBT lifestyles are being co-opted by those in power? At whose expense do certain identities and bodies gain visibility?


Sarah Pinder (Presenter)

Sarah Pinder is a writer, teacher and recovering academic living in Toronto. A zine-maker of nearly 10 years, her work has been shortlisted for the Expozine Small Press awards, as well as NOW Magazine’s Best of Toronto. She has been published in the anthology She’s Shameless, invisible city, Canadian Woman Studies, and Room. You can also find her zines in the Distroboto art vending machines around Montreal. Once an editor for Existere magazine, Sarah now writes for Broken Pencil. Follow her here: bitsofstring.wordpress.com
Jaclyn Isen, shOUT! Project Director

Jaclyn Alia Isen (Moderator)
Queer West Vice President and Shout Project Director