All posts by mikirogerscreatrix

FrankenZine, Funding News and Flavoursome Workshops

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A graphic text logo that reads 'FRANKENZINE' in a colorful, dripping font, featuring a Halloween theme.

Lots of news from Tees Zine Fest. We have another event for 2025, this time in Redcar to tie in nicely with the work we’ve been doing with local LGBTQ+ group Skittles and Halloween (of course). Our FrankenZine Mini Zine Fest happens on the Sat 25th October at Redcar Literary Institute from 1-6pm

There’ll be some of regular Zine makers and some new faces, including members of the Skittles Youth Group we worked with before the Summer as well as the Zine Library, Community Table and Workshops. We’ll also be doing some seasonal drinks and treats!

The Zine project with Skittles was funded by Tees Valley Museums and we worked in collaboration with Kirkleatham Museum. I worked weekly with friend and regular collaborator Wade Radford the fantastic zine and filmmaker and poet. It culminated in a show of the young people’s Zines and the film Wade made with them at the ground floor gallery space at the museum, and also included some histories of people from the LGBTQIA+ community from Teesside.

I’ve also been working with Wade supporting his film work, there’ll be more on that as it’s released

Funding News

We’re happy to say our Tees Zine Fest CIC has now been granted further funding, this time from Woodsmith Foundation. This enables us to further work with the young people in Redcar on the run up to the Zine Fest.

On top of this, Rumana of Bok Bok Books and I applied for and were finally successful in an bid from the Arts Council (after a couple of goes) for our ‘What’s in my Suitcase’ Project. We’ll be back with the Desi Blitz truck Painted Bus at events and schools across Teesside starting late September including Festival of Thrift and Middlesbrough Arts Week.

Flavoursome Workshops

I’ve been back to doing tea workshops recently, working with Hartlepool Museums. Alongside Rumana and Indi we had the unusual experience of doing workshops in and around a historic ship at the Hartlepool Royal Navy museum and I got to do tea blending in the captain’s cabin of the HMS Trincomalee. This was a bit of a full circle moment for me, as a 16 yr old my then Hartlepool resident boyfriend worked on the ship on a YTS scheme!

The work has also taken me to the Salaam Centre in Hartlepool, a great community centre in the heart of one of the more diverse parts of the town, and I got to work with people who had come to our area from across the world as we talked tea traditions and memories and blended teas to take home.

The next few months I’ll continue to work with the Hartlepool Museum Service, this time in the NHS hospital in the town. my other upcoming workshops include Colourful Blackout Poetry and Life Drawing ( not me as the model luckily) for Pimms and Needles lots of bits and bobs of workshops and consultancy work and planning for the Christmas Markets. Busy… very busy!

Behind the Scenes, Zinefest Update and New Projects

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December was a right damp squib…

Or more correctly akin to a hurricane. The weather this year for Christmas markets was absolutely crap, to be fair, and it is an issue those of us whose businesses rely on these markets to see us through the following months.

Luckily in January and February I was kept really busy with my fantastic multi-talented friend and collaborator Wade, working on his many projects, starting with Discreetest 2000 which has given me my first IMDB credit as cinematographer and production manager, filmed on video8 and now released as a zine with the full story and DVD.

What a treat it was but WOW was it tiring- it involved fireworks, a mercy mission to Middlesbrough and back, learning how to use 1980s and 1990s film and photography tech and A LOT of coffee.

Discreetest 2000 Teaser Trailer

We went straight from our weekend jaunt across North Yorkshire Dales and Coast, into the Premiere of The Busby and Me. This is Wade’s 17 year telling of the Legend of the Busby Stoop took Wade’s original teenage ghost hunting footage and blended it with new footage he’d taken at the back end of last year.

The premiere was a full house at the stunning vintage Ritz Cinema in Thirsk, where the Museum holding the fated chair resides, and the film was fantastically received, with a queue of people clamouring to get in, a queue for our merch stall which included my Illustration for the film, signed by Wade and me. Sadie introduced the film and it was an unreal night!

Straight from the Busby, Wade released a third project, Poetry on 8 tape – a really special one for me.

Taking his favoured video8 film again and blending it with his eclectic poetry and music from Sadie Joan this beautiful meditation of films starts with a poem about my own Nana, who died when I was a child and Wade recreated through his creativity, and gave me another mention as a cast member.

This one’s on Youtube now and absolutely needs a view.

A quick Zine Fest Update ..

Tees Zine Fest in now a CIC and we’re working hard to put in place everything to get the funding for our upcoming workshops for 13-17 and 18-25 year olds in East Cleveland. Zine Fest dates are out and tables are booking quickly !

This time we’re running a Zine Fest on 24th May and a Makers Market on 31st May at Unit 7, Navigator North, which they run as a gallery and arts space opposite Primark in Middlesbrough, and are kind enough to support us with. If you want a stall, see our FB and INSTA pages for links!

Coming Up!

Never moan about being quiet! I’ve got loads coming up. After my graphic recording this year so far for a couple of great organisations, it’s definitely here to stay and I have bookings into April!

Rumana and I will be back to Saltburn in a couple of weeks with the Saltburn Valley of Light, fabulously run by Stellar Creates. This time we’re taking Muslim symbolism to our light piece, to celebrate Ramadan.

We’ll be working together again in April with more willow and cultural storytelling at Ormesby Hall for a beautiful commission the based on Japanese Cherry Blossom festivals.

And so it begins!

Beamish, Zines, Tattoo Pics

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Beamish!

It’s been such a busy autumn but nothing is a busy as the two months before Christmas if you’re someone who does stalls – in the meantime I’ll take you back to what I’ve done over the last couple of months and we have to start with Beamish ..

After my residency at Beamish last year with the One Suitcase’ Project, I’d been asked alongside my friends and collaborators Rumana of Bok Bok Books and Indi from Desi Blitz to take part in a South Asian ‘Migration Day’ Takeover with our ‘What’s in your suitcase project.

We met Indi and his fabulous Truck Painted Bus at the venue and got ready, dressing Rose Cottage where I was based, ready to chat to visitors and record them and Indi was serving homemade Samosas, the Welfare Hall where Rumana was telling South Asian based children’s stories and the Cinema, which was playing Indi’s Partition film. We were joined by an amazing South Asian dance group and a dementia group which works with people from the community in South Shields.

We all dressed the part – all three of us wearing traditional SA dress Rumana and I ware spoilt by having our hair done in the 1950s Hairdressers. – It was a fantastically busy day and we absolutely loved the colour, sounds and smells that had been added too the traditional 50s town, plus as always the staff were fabulous! I managed to record and edit quite a few pieces ready to be added to the Beamish archive – what an epic day with THE BEST people !

Zines in Hartlepool and Sunderland

We popped up at The Central Hub in Hartlepool for a mini Zine Fest! I was asked by Hartlepool Council with funds from Arts Council England to run this fab little zine fest as a way of getting younger people into the venue which is also the Central Library.

As always zine tests attract the best stallholders, kind, caring and sharing and we spent the day becoming even more of a collective than we had at the last event . The range of work was amazing and it was great to tell visitors about zines and zinemaking , especially as a way of sharing community specific information and passions.

Then last week it was over to Sunderland to run a Zine Making class at Hills Arts Centre right in the Centre of town – organised by the amazing Michaela (and the only fellow Michaela I know) of Pink Collar Gallery– through Norfolk Street Arts Heritage Fund. I love a zine workshop because everyone can make a zine and it can literally be about anything you like… as a starting point we had thoughts about Sunderland then and now , but the work produced really did pick up on personal emotions and memories around experiences of living and working in the city.
Zines can do all that ..

Tattoo Photography with Emma Vynokurova

Emma is a photographer displaced from Ukraine and now living in Newcastle. a friend sent me info about a tattoo photography project Emma was doing, recording people who had tattoos with a meaning, and Emma agreed to photograph me in her studio after hearing about my ink.

My tattoos, like much in my life reflect my memories of my Nana and her influence on me, especially on being a tea purveyor. Emmas project looks as these stories and links them through her ‘Pritani’ project (Pritani being the original name of Britain, and meaning ‘Painted Ones’ in old Celtic.

I spent a good few hours with the wonderful Emma, learned of her flight with her daughter from Ukraine as a result of the war, and her story in Newcastle so far, first with a sponsor in their home and now with her own home, and having to start again after giving up a successful career in Events in her home country .

Emma really understood where my tattoos where influenced by my Nana and the images , later part of an exhibition were beautiful. Can’t wait to see Emma again as we got on famously!

You can find Emma and her work at https://www.instagram.com/emmafoto.ua

images courtesy of Emma Vynokurova

What’s in My Suitcase and the Mobile Museum of Migration

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It’s been a busy time since the end of the One Suitcase project, and one of the best parts of the project was meeting colleague Rumana Yasmin and ultimately piloting and planning a new amazing project.

Rumana is a Bangladeshi writer and the founder of Bok Bok Books, publishing children’s books which tell South Asian Stories and provide representation for children in the UK who are from South Asian Descent.

She introduced me to the Desiblitz Truck Painted bus. Based in Birmingham, Desiblitz are a Community Organisation who work within Asian communities and use the bus, which was painted by world renown Pakistani Truck Painter Haider Ali to engage people of all ages and backgrounds.

Together we’ve been piloting taking the bus to venues as the Mobile Museum of Migration, talking to people about artefacts, sounds and memories brought to Teesside from across the world, their travelling stories and memories around the familial objects. Our two pilot events , which were both hugely positive were supported by Kirkleatham Museum and Middlesbrough MELA. Both organisations have pledged to support our ongoing larger planned project.

Our project involves taking the bus, Mobile Museum and activities to schools, events and communities around Teesside where we’ll use stories, artefacts and activities to explore and find items which arrived to the area through migration.

We’ll work with classes, communities and those who have already been involved in the One Suitcase project to co-create a children’s book, which will be narrative in part, with characters based on Bangladeshi birds, tying in with traditional Bangladeshi tales and the illustrations on the bus and partly stories of the objects and information about them, written by Rumana which I will illustrate.

Some of the organisations interested in sharing artefacts and co-creation include schools, both Primary and Secondary, organisations who work with Newly Arrived Communities, and an ESOL (English as a Second language) group.

The book will represent the diversity of communities in Teesside, and will share not only the migration stories of the artefacts, but of those who came and continue to travel, like Rumana from Bangladesh and my family from Ireland, from across the world to make Teesside their home.