Online Workshop
Beate Absalon (DE)
There are remedies for many crises: Video tutorials show how to write applications or how to prepare a dish. Magazines provide tips on how to flirt or gaming tricks. Some problems, however, are trickier and more complex. When you feel unwell, tense or tired, there isn’t always a straightforward answer to the problem. Simple advice doesn’t help: “Think about something positive!”, “Don’t be like that!”, “Just try harder!” …
What is needed is someone who understands – even a booklet can help. In this workshop we will produce so-called Self-Care Zines. Through mindful questions and inspiration, these small, anarchically handmade magazines encourage reflection to take importance in oneself and to become curious and inventive with unusual circumstances. For example, they provide comfort for heartbreak by sharing songs about heartbreak and grief rituals. They also encourage students to try smartphone fasting with comics or to say “no” more often by providing sample sentences for different contexts that may arise.
The students are addressed as experts to design their own zine with simple means and creative ideas. In an intimate setting, we find out what questions are on our minds, what life wisdom we would like to have received ourselves, or what we are already being consulted on by other people, since we already have a good knack for some sensitive topics.
“Empowerment” is another keyword here. Becoming less dependent and empowering yourself – because you know best what is good for you.
| Format | Workshop |
| Implementation | Online |
| Duration | 2–4 hours |
| Participants | 5–15 people |
| Age | 10–19 years |
| Guidance | Workshop leader Beate Absalon and a school teacher |
| Price | free |
Keywords: Self-care, Empowerment, Craftivism, Guidebooks, Psychosocial Reflection Methods, Do-It-Yourself
Beate Absalon is a cultural scientist currently writing her doctoral thesis on a self-care topic: mutual consent. This is about getting to know one’s own boundaries and desires, communicating them to others and thus standing up for oneself. This is difficult for many who have learned to adapt, to please others and to put their own needs aside. It is only in recent years that the importance of mutual consent has been taken up in sex education – this is a focus of Absalon’s doctoral work. A few years ago, as a hobby, she started to write zines about the issues that concern her or to give them away to friends, for example to help them with upcoming exams, stressful family visits or lockdowns. www.aesthetik.hu-berlin.de/de/beate-absalon/
Questions? Interested?
For further information and booking inquiries please contact tour@ars.electronica.art
The create your world TOUR took part within the Open Science Hub that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation under grant agreement No. 824581.
