Abstract

This paper explores zine writing by people with mental illness as a form of community building that challenges dominant, stigmatizing representations. The ways in which zine authors disrupt doctor/patient, consumer/producer and reader/writer boundaries is investigated as providing insights into alternative ways of identifying and forming mental health communities. The author argues that these zines, as part of an underground disability arts movement, position mental illness as a segment of a larger disability culture. In its conclusions, this article suggests that it is imperative for art educators to complicate their understandings of culture and disability in order to recognize disability as a complex culture.

How to Cite:

Eisenhauer, J., (2010) “Writing Dora: Creating Community Through Autobiographical Zines about Mental Illness”, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education 28(1), 25-38. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jcrae.4986