Central Question

How does Gen Z cope with the pandemic, especially through art?

Splice answers this through showcasing art created by Generation Z and interviews detailing people’s lives during quarantine.

Literature

Lucas Kuhl's Fame Fatale and Bella McFadden's iGirl heavily inspired this project.

​

Kuhl is a zinester whose main techniques are film photography, manual curation and interviews (Kuhl). Seeing that Kuhl was able to create such vivid imagery using simple techniques, cut and paste being one of them, was inspiring. It shows the relevance that the roots of zine culture still has, which influenced the cover of my zine, which is after that same style. Interviews with artists also let the audience further into the artists’ world, which is why I decided to have interviews in my zine.

McFadden is a fashion designer who recently launched a zine, which had hand-drawn art and photography (McFadden). Both zines align with the do-it-yourself ethics, which are a huge pillar of zine culture. McFadden’s question and answer style of interviewing and the inclusion of photos superimposed onto the interview pages inspired me to try out different versions of formatting for my project, such as alternating between the art and the interviews.

“Why the Internet Didn’t Kill Zines” by Jenna Wortham and “Creativity and Recovery: The Mental Health Benefits of Art Therapy” by Mary Ann Cohen

Wortham’s article tackles the survival of zines in the digital age, and how that can largely be accredited to their humanity and intimacy (Wortham). Zines give people the ability to have interaction, and create and control their own stories. Wortham’s piece made me want my project to be able to be an ongoing conversation about creating art in stressful times.

Art therapy can help increase self-esteem and also give people an “emotional release” (Cohen). Cohen’s article on art therapy gave me a deeper understanding and background of why some turn to art when under stress or extreme emotion. Learning that people are able to experience relief and catharsis helped me format my interview questions.