New event! Information Lives in DIY Culture (15th November 2025)
Date: 15th November 2025
Location: Manchester Metropolitan University
Join us at SODA (School of Digital Arts) for Information Lives in DIY Culture.
This day-long event, convened by Dr Kirsty Fife, explores the relationship between DIY cultures (grassroots and political cultures and practices) and information, archives, libraries and heritage.
Examples of this include (by aren’t limited to!) setting up physical and/or digital grassroots libraries and archives (e.g., Salford Zine Library, Manchester Digital Music Archive), collaborations between institutions and DIY cultural organisers (e.g., People’s History Museum and Over Here Zine Fest), archives of grassroots culture and social movements), and people with a background in DIY culture working in information organisations and the information sector.
The event will be informal and different to more traditional academic conferences. Anyone is welcome to attend, including people involved in DIY cultures (for instance musicians, zine makers, organisers), people who work or volunteer in information organisations (libraries, archives, museums and more!) and people doing research (in universities or any other spaces!). This event aims to bring together people in each of these spaces so that we can learn from each other, share skills and knowledge, and make connections that help sustain our endeavours in the future.
Book a free ticket via Eventbrite here!
View the full programme for the event including abstracts here.
Programme overview
09:30-10:00
Registration and refreshments (SODA ground floor atrium)
10:00-10:15: Introduction and overview of day (SODA Cinema)
Kirsty Fife (they/them, Manchester Metropolitan University)
10:15-11:45
Panel: Queer archiving (SODA Cinema)
Chair: Kirsty Fife
CJ de Barra (Nottingham Queer History Archive, they/them): How not to start an archive: how radical archives are documenting queer life.
Monika Rodriguez (she/her) and Michael Pierce (he/they) (freelance community archivists) – From Attics to Screenings – Discovering DIY archives
Workshop (SODA 1.07)
Morrigan Ivy Dann (she/they) – Zines As Sites of Archiving
Workshop (SODA 1.01)
Amie Kirby (she/her) – All Flames, Big and Little: Community-Led Working Class History at the Working Class Movement Library
11:45-12:00: Break
12:00-13:30
Panel: Remaking (SODA Cinema)
Chair: Kirsty Fife
Kim Foale (Geeks for Social Change, she/they) – Building DIY technology infrastructure for community liberation
Ben Perkins (Another Subculture, he/him) – Another Subculture and Punk Evidence (why make a zine when there’s Instagram?)
Shaoli Choudhury (British Library, she/her) – Bridging the Island: The Reimagining of Heritage Spaces
Panel: Zines (SODA 1.01)
Chair: Amie Kirby
Chella Quint (she/her) – Adventures in Menstruating at Twenty: Zines, Activism, and the Inclusive Politics of Period Positivity
Elizabeth Gibson (they/them) – Reclaiming Queer Healthcare: Zines as Testimonies and Tools for Change
Martin Smith (Manchester Metropolitan University, he/him) – Take This With You and Leave It Somewhere Else
Workshop (SODA 1.09)
Liv Owens (they/them) and Lily Bichard-Collins (she/her) – Data Sculptures
13:30-14:30: Lunch (served in SODA 1.01)
14:30-16:00
Panel: Community-driven practice (SODA 1.01)
Chair: Kirsty Fife
Alice Parsons (Bradford LGBTQ+ Archive/Castles in the Sky, she/her) – Collecting the collective – an interactive talk and workshop unpacking the work of the Bradford LGBTQ+ archive
Isaac Heller (he/they) – Archiving DIY: Resistant World-Making in Queer Archival Space
Cameron Huggett (he/him) – Voice of the Fans: A Retrospective
Workshop (SODA 1.09)
Jet Moon (they/them) – You Are Here – survivor writing and peer to peer knowledge
Screening and discussion (SODA Cinema)
Chair: Martin Smith
Peter Shukie (he/him) and Paul Nataraj (he/him) – Dirt Poets and the Flyover Gallery: Creating Outside the Conventional
16:00-16:15 Closing comments (SODA cinema)
Kirsty Fife (Manchester Metropolitan University, they/them)
All day activities
Stalls from MURMUR (SODA ground floor atrium) and Simran Purwaha-Sidhu (Ground floor atrium).