A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline is a multi-dimensional project concerned with documenting queer and trans fat feminist community histories and memories. It began as a workshop, transformed into an object that was discussed in various places and archived; it became a paper zine and a download, an audio zine, a video clip, and an academic paper. It’s out there in the world for people to work with creatively.
The workshop
In 2010 I proposed and facilitated a workshop at the NOLOSE gathering in Oakland, California. A big group of us collectively produced a timeline of things that we thought were significant or should be remembered about queer and trans fat activist histories. The timeline itself was a long piece of paper, separated into years, where people wrote directly in pen.
The object
The original paper timeline was a beautiful object. I took this object to a number of gatherings in California, the UK and Germany, where it inspired lively discussions. The timeline itself is now archived at Bildwechsel, a wonderful feminist archive which has its main office in Hamburg. You can go and visit it and have a look at it.
The zine
Part of the workshop proposal was that I would make a zine of the timeline which would be donated to archives and distributed in an attempt to create conversations about queer and trans fat activist histories. So I made a zine whilst being the artist in residence at Villa Magdalena K in Hamburg. It’s based on the timeline, includes an explanation, some pictures and the text of the timeline itself.
The paper zine has 34 pages, is A5 format with a gold-coloured cover. It is printed on recycled paper and card. 250 copies were printed and it has now SOLD OUT. Many thanks to everyone who bought a copy, and especially those who donated extra cash, this enabled me to send the zine to over 60 archives and zine libraries worldwide.
Don’t worry if you didn’t get a paper version, the zine lives on in digital format:
A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline zine – digital version (.pdf, 6.5mb)
A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline Zine – audio version (.mp3, approx 52 mins, 24mb)
The academic paper
Here’s the reference and abstract for a paper I wrote about the project. Drop me a line if you have trouble getting a copy of this work.
A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline: Queering Fat Activist Nationality and Cultural Imperialism
A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline is a project located in multiple spaces that began as an attempt to co-create a snapshot of community history. The timeline began as a conference workshop, became an object produced by that workshop, and then transformed into other entities: something that could be discussed and remodelled into multiple forms, on- and offline, and into archival objects. It originated as a fat activist dialogue with community histories and memory, but has moved beyond its original intent. The content of this particular fat activist project is not under discussion here: the process of fat activism and the cultures within which it takes place are the areas with which I wish to engage in this article. However, I encourage readers to downloaded digital copies of the zine from my blog, obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com.
Cooper, C. (2012) ‘A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline: Queering Fat Activist Nationality and Cultural Imperialism’, Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society 1: 1, 61-74.
The Future
There is already at least one other Timeline, created collectively in Brussels at a workshop in 2013. There could be others. Please contact me if you are interested in making one and developing this project.