Hi everyone,
Hope you're all having a nice weekend,
I'm forwarding on details about a project that is starting shortly looking
for participants, if you are interested in taking part, or you know of
someone else that might want to get involved, you can get in touch with
Ellis using his email address as shown (see the attached email thread) x
*Kyle Gibbens, he/him*
*Queer Zine Library*
Celebrating radical LGBTQIA+ self-publishing.
*W*: www.queerzinelibrary.com
* I*: @queerzinelibrary <https://www.instagram.com/queerzinelibrary>
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ellis R-W <erobertswright@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 at 17:23
Subject: Re: Queer Dreaming (Interview Project)
To: Queer Zine Library <queerzinelibrary@xxxxxxxxx>
Hey!
No worries about the slow response - I know how hard it can be trying to
run something for free around the rest of your life!
We still have a few weeks with nothing set in stone so it’s still entirely
possible we might be able to fit people in, depending on where they live
and when they’re free. So please do put an invitation out and pass along my
email to anyone who’s interested/has questions/wants to hear more :)
Great to hear from you!
All the best,
Ellis
Sent from my iPhone
On 1 Aug 2021, at 12:31, Queer Zine Library <queerzinelibrary@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Ellis and Maisie,
First of all - I'm really sorry it's taken this long for us to respond.
Because we run the library voluntarily outside of our day jobs it means
that emails don't get seen as quickly as we would often like.
Your project sounds brilliant! We're delighted to have been asked to take
part and we hope the overall experience is a positive one for you both 😁
If there is still time for us to be involved, we'd like to put the
invitation out to our collective to see if anyone would like to
participate, would this be ok? No worries if not, we understand you have a
schedule you are working to.
All the best,
*Kyle Gibbens, he/him*
*Queer Zine Library*
Celebrating radical LGBTQIA+ self-publishing.
*W*: www.queerzinelibrary.com
* I*: @queerzinelibrary <https://www.instagram.com/queerzinelibrary>
On Sat, 3 Jul 2021 at 16:21, Ellis R-W <erobertswright@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,
We (Ellis + Maisie, two trans queers) are reaching out to tell you about a
project that we will be undertaking this summer (from the end of July to
mid-September) that we’re really excited about, and to invite you to be a
part of it!
We’re going to be conducting and filming a series of
interviews/conversations exploring our imagined utopias and the ways in
which we work to move towards them. We’d be looking to talk to you in
person in a setting that feels relevant and (more importantly!) comfortable
for you, for about 1-3 hours of conversation, not necessarily all on
camera. Both of us have had our first vaccinations, and will be regularly
taking lateral flow tests, including directly before the interviews. We’re
very happy to talk about conditions that would make this more comfortable
for you.
This project has roots in many places, and is interested in a variety of
themes, but the central through-line is about dreaming and the power it
holds. Capitalism suffocates the ability to dream, because dreaming is a
threat to the stranglehold capitalism has on our society, and on most of
us. When we dream, when we come together and speak of a sense of joy and
purpose that comes from things outside of producing capital, when we build
communities and pool resources, we often find ourselves starting to picture
a different future. Marginalised communities in particular are often conned
into believing we should only be pushing for “basic human rights” rather
than dreaming up a future that enlivens us, asking for love and art and
excitement. We want to talk to people like you about your dreams, find out
what your personal utopias would look like, hear about your values and your
communities, and to explore what nurtures our imaginations, as well as how
we can make these imaginings real.
The Queer Zine Library feels like a great way to encourage people to
dream, and is proof of what we can dream up and create without it needing
to exist solely to provide capital. It's so important that we keep sharing
queer art and queer stories, seeing how they change and evolve over time,
sharing our passion and our joy and our pain and our love... And then the
zine library is also a great way to bring people together to share space
and discuss these things and dream more up together. So we'd really love to
talk to you about your experience creating & running this project, how that
plays into your dreams of a better world, and what that world might look
like.
We’re making this series of interviews completely out of our own pockets,
because it’s the kind of media we would want to be available to us, and we
feel it is a gift to be able to do this! We want the finished product/s to
be available online for free (we’re thinking on vimeo or youtube), but
we’re very very up for making cashapp/paypal/venmo accounts available in
the video description, if you want to give us links to post
there. Additionally, in case anyone wishes to offer financial support, we
will link to a main account that we will divide income from and distribute
to everyone involved. If you are interested in this project but would be
unable to if it is unpaid, please let us know. We are interested in how
your position in the world affects your ability (or inability) to be a part
of this, and want to ensure anyone who is keen to take part is able to do
so.
We really want this to be a community project, a work of collaboration, an
act of love. This will only come into being because of community, because
of the people who are willing to talk to us, the people who let us sleep in
their spare rooms or on their floors, the friends who pick us up from train
stations and listen to our ideas. This will be both a love letter to
community and what we can dream up together, and also a testament to it.
Please get in touch if you’re interested in being a part of this, want to
hear more, or want to suggest other people or organisations we should reach
out to! We’d really love to hear from you.
Love and solidarity,
Ellis (he/him) & Maisie (they/them)
