SB1 - Initial Research: Daikon

 Designer and collectives I have been interested in at the moment can include those which are trying to do thing to shed a light on topics which aren't necessarily being talked about. Things which relate to myself within the work is something which encourages myself to include this within my own practice as well as wanting to find other things that creatives are doing related to this. 

Some examples of practitioners who I am currently interested in and are doing these things can include:

Daikon:
This is a collective of South East/East Asian women and non-binary people who create submission based zines including Asian voices which are often underrepresented and undervalued in mainstream political and feminist discourse. One of the key aims of highlighting issues that we face is to empower others by highlighting collective frustrations and nuances of our international nuances by building a wider platform for solidarity. 

*Aspects took from the Manifesto 

I had come about this collective via social media through other mutual accounts and I found their work particularly interesting as I haven't seen much in the media covering the issues that people in Asian communities face. Coming from a South Asian background, this was quite exciting to find others who also find this to be the case as well. I had found out not too long ago that they were coming to the North to take part in some print fairs and considering I don't live too far away from Manchester, I had to go visit - more to interact with the people behind the collective as well as being able to see their zines and interact with their physical work and talk to them about that as well. 

Something which was raised today in a talk by visiting professionals from Village bookstore was the diversity and evident community within the self-publishing bubble as it is a very close-knit group including people supporting other creatives.  This is already evident from one of the print fairs that I had attended that day I went to Manchester - Over Here  Zine Fest especially. 


This was the first event to be held in the North ( as far as I'm aware) to just solely be focused on providing exposure on those coming from BAME and working-class background including work focused on art, publishing, activism, and collaboration between communities.  This was a very interesting event to go to as I got in, I instantly felt comfortable seeing people from similar backgrounds as mine and it made me feel motivated in a way to see work that they had produced by more that one individual.  I was able to meet the second half of the Daikon group as I had visited the Strange Perfume Print Fair before this where some of the group had recognised me as at strange Perfume we had discussed a potential collaboration and they had shared my socials with their whole group over a group chat which I had found to be quite flattering ngl. 

At the time I wasn't aware of the Creative report brief so it was very convinced that I had this interaction and brought up the consideration for a collaboration as they liked the look of my work on my Instagram. I do also want to make the point that I haven't solely chosen this group as I interacted with them and we said that we could collaborate as I often visit print fairs in the north and south and I was quite lucky to have this interaction with this group.