Performances Representing Our Class Identity

Brian Kalyuzhny, Jennelle Ohene-Agyei, Samuel Fang, and Tanna Dodson

For our theme for the week 7 Quaran-Zine, we chose to portray the different hobbies of our classmates that fall under the topic of “performance”. Our image portrays a person’s room with objects that symbolize our peers, a way to bring us all together in a time when we are physically apart. The pandemic has led to the cancelation of most of our favorite activities, and we miss them now more than ever. Our zines made us realize how much we’ve lost from our “normal” lives and highlighted the non-health-related effects of the pandemic. Our zine cover page highlights our powerful desire to express ourselves and that no matter what happens, our identities can never be taken from us.

For our second zine cover, we chose to emphasize the theme of activism on issues we are passionate about by portraying the Earth with multiple signs on current issues. The pandemic has caused protests to be more difficult, due to social distancing guidelines. Nevertheless, protestors found ways to still fight for issues by making sure to wear masks and express themselves safely. The zine creation allowed us to realize that even during a pandemic, inequality and injustice still exists in our society (if anything, it highlights it), and the coronavirus should not silence our beliefs or make our voices less heard. The cover illustrates that there are all sorts of issues that currently exist, and that we can come together to fight for those issues together. It doesn’t matter how different we might be, or the backgrounds that we come from, but how we unify to fight the common problems we face.