BIG FAMILY PRESS RESOURCES - South London Gallery

Through the Big Family Press, the SLG’s community risograph printing press, the South London Gallery have commissioned this series of illustrated resources with leading contemporary artists, illustrators and designers to support children to write, publish and share their own stories.

You can freely download the resources at the links below. They work best when used in combination with each other.

The resources, which have all been designed with Peckham and Camberwell in mind, can be downloaded, printed and used by children at home or in collage-based workshops, creative writing or art-based activities or in your classroom.

You will need:

A4 or A3 sheets of paper.
Our zine template (click here to download). This template works just as well when printed on A4 or A3 paper. Alternatively, you could make a poster using a big sheet of paper, or whatever you might have lying around the home, such as the inside of a cereal box.
A flat surface, scissors and some non-toxic glue (like a Pritt stick). Mind your fingers and ask an adult if you need help cutting anything out.
Some things to write or draw with, such as marker pens, pencils, wax crayons or chalk. You may like to challenge yourself to try and to make a zine just using the collage material, or without an eraser or ruler.
Someone special to send your finished zine to. If you’d like us to print your zine using our special risograph printer, you can send your zines to us: The Big Family Press at South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, London SE5 8UH. Remember to include your return address so we can send your zines back to you in autumn 2020.

You can make your zine about anything you’d like. If you’re in need of some inspiration, you can read some previously published zines on our ISSUU page (click here to view) or on the Big Family Press Instagram account @BigFamilyPress.

Click here to find out more about the Big Family Press.

ZINE IDEAS

We’ve thought of some suggestions that you might like to try:

Write a travel guide about where you live, for someone who has never been there.
Write a travel guide about life in 2020, for someone from 1920.
Think about a special skill you have and use a zine to explain how to do it in six steps.
Draw six objects that you can see from your window.
Describe six things that you would change about where you live and why.
Make a zine about life in the country that your grandparents are from.
Everything in a museum is now for sale. Design the catalogue.
Imagine your closest High Street at 5am on a Monday morning.
Write and draw six facts about your grandmother.
A zine documenting what you do when you want to have fun.
Design six new buildings and name them after important events in your life.
Draw six important things that have happened to you in the last twelve months.
Think back to 2019 and make a map of all the people you met.
Life on Earth in the year 2120.
Draw six objects that have a special significance to you.
You are the Prime Minister, what are the first six laws that you will pass?
Make a zine mapping your journey to school.
Make a zine mapping your journey to somewhere you’ve never been, but would like to go.
Using one page for each generation, try to draw your family tree.
Find six different textures in the room you are in and find a way to archive them in your publication.
Write six questions for somebody living in Jamaica.
Write another six questions for somebody living in Germany.
Make a film poster about your life.

BIG FAMILY PRESS & OOMK RESOURCES

To conclude their year-long commission with Oliver Goldsmith Primary School in Spring 2018, artist collective One of My Kind (OOMK) devised five resources to creatively and critically explore heritage and archives. These resources are designed to be downloaded and printed on either A4 or A3 paper, and can be used with a selection of cheap materials you might find around your home.

For more information about any of these resources or about printing with the Big Family Press, please contact Ben Messih, Heritage Education Manager ben@southlondongallery.org