fugitivity

The Zinester Returns

| Sheree
the zine that documents the zines I want to create moving forward into 2026

I’ve just been over on my Patreon page sharing about the first zine of the year. Do you want to know what I shared about it?

Okay, I’ll tell yo here too!

A few years ago, I gave myself the challenge of creating a zine a month. Check back using the ‘zine’ tags and no doubt you’ll find them, still there ready to download and peruse.

This year, I vaguely set myself this challenge again, to create a zine a month and share it here. I think. As I’m still in the process of committing. But last night, at a Zinester Sanctuary that I’m creating witha fellow fugitive, I had the time to create my first zine of the year. See the video above.

I looked back at one of my zines from my first challenge, this was a zine about the zines I wanted to create. I looked back to see if this list of zines with illustrations were still zines I wanted to create.

After this reflection, I then set forth to create the zine that hopefully is the blueprint for 2026 creations.

In the video what you are seeing is the front cover stating that ‘Abolition is a Global Struggle’ with FREE PALESTINE but also the caveat that this has to be completed ‘with patience and care’.

The next page with a wheel of a VW Campervan and the text ‘ like a bird flying into’, is a nod towards my love of nature and how she will always appear in my zine creating, some way or another.

The next double spread with an image of two little girls standing on the beach, myself and my estranged sister and the text reads, ‘me in all my fucked up glory’. This signifies the task of creating perzines, using the format to explore my life stories.

On the green page with a roughly drawn book in black pencil refers to my desire to dive deep into my black studies, studying blackness as fugitivity, fugitive spaces. ‘You will find comfort in blackness’ the text reads to accompany this intention.

The next page is a quote from Octavia E Butler, from Parable of the Sower which states, ‘All that you touch you change, all that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change.’ This was a small print I received from a printmaker friend called Theresa Easton.

The second double spread, because I hadn’t finished yet with my intentions (so who says you can’t add in another page?) is a recognition of my word of the year which is AFROSURREAL. I’ll be exploring what this means further throughout the year here and on my website.

This is partnered with a splash of purple/ mauve as the text reads, ‘ in mauve there is a quiet power.’ This is a reminder for myself to use my zines to share my poetry. My voice is my power. This was how I started making small zines, booklets before my first collection of poetry, Family Album was published. Because I was reading at all these gigs and people would come up afterwards and say where can I buy your work and I had no where to point them to. So I got creative and created these little zines , one dedicated to the poems I’d written about my daddy and one other dedicated to my mummy, and sold them for £1 each. I’d forgotten about them until I just wrote about them here now. Don’ you just love the creative process?

And then moving towards the end of this first zine of 2026, which apparently has been announced as the year of the zine – 2026, we’ll see what happens there as zines could become if not already commercialised and co-opted and become unrecognisable from their origins ( which I’ll be exploring and sharing further about here), there is a polaroid photo of myself smiling. This was taken last year at a Outdoor Citizen gathering, and these were taken to put on the wall with details about ourselves so we could be putting names to face,s be recognised within the crowds. This image is here with the title ‘fugitive sista’ as a reminder of who I {BE} but also who I {BE}coming through my continuing thoughts and praxis around fugitivity.

The final page with the outline of a goddess in black pencil and spiral within her gut/ womb and the text, ‘ Today I will praise. I will praise The Black Woman.’ Today ,tomorrow and always, I will praise the Black Woman. I support this praise with my continuing reading and practicing of Black Feminist thought and praxis. This is my foundation always.

The back cover ends with another sticker and this time it states, ‘ From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’ Again reminding myself that I do this work, explore my creativity and share whatever comes up within a constantly changing context of struggles, struggles for liberation, peace, justice, self-determination and love.

2026, the year of the zines. Let’s make it the year of the zines that give voice to the struggles near and far , struggles for liberation, peace, justice, self-determination and love.

How many of us have heard about Keith Porter Jr.?

| Sheree

I’ll tell you the truth, I heard about Keith Porter Jr. 1 day ago.

Keith Porter Jr., a 43 year old father of two girls. He loves fishing and spending time with his family. Laughing.

Keith fundraised for battered women’s shelters, supported street artists, advocated for health services. With real family and friends, real daughters and a real presence in his community, Keith Porter Jr. is no longer with us.

Rest in Power Keith.

On New Year’s Eve, in Northridge, Los Angeles, Keith was seeing in the new year with family and friends in his neighbourhood. Tradition was to fire a gun into the air in celebration.

An off duty ICE agent, heard the shots, and inserted himself into the situation. A situation he shouldn’t have been in as an ICE agent is supposedly trained in compliance, transportation, custody paperwork. Immigration.

ICE is not designed or trained in community engagement responses. community law enforcement.

It is argued that after a short verbal exchange, the ICE agent shot and killed Keith.

Official reports from federal agencies say the ICE agent was responding to an ‘active shooter situation’. The department of homeland security says Porter fired at the agent before he was killed (in cold blood).

Watch how they change the narrative. Remember Keith Porter Jr. the man laughing with his family, caring and empathetic will become the monster who deserves to be dead.

Family and community advocates dispute this claim, stating that there is no independent released video evidence showing Keith Porter Jr. posed an imminent threat or fired at the agent.

Rather than lethal force, this off duty ICE agent should have done his citizen’s duty and called local Police as this was not an immigration issue. This was not his jurisdiction, his authority.

Keith Porter Jr. became an imminent threat only when this ICE agent turned up.

ICE has no community engagement training. They might have authority but not in the community, they don’t have the judgement and empathy to be on the streets. But obviously this ICE agent, off duty, thought otherwise.

Nearly two weeks ago Keith Porter Jr. was shot and killed. And people, the average person, even those online are just starting to find out about this murder. Only after Renee Good’s cold bloodied murder.

There is selective outrage in America. As I wrote last week, I have no issue with the response to Renee Good – that’s how we should be respond in this situation.

But

#SayHisName

Keith Porter Jr.

His family had been struggling to get his story, his unlawful killing into the current media cycle. This just compounds what I’ve been saying about the lack of visibility in mainstream media of black people being unlawfully killed by law enforcement.

Be honest have you heard of Keith Porter Jr? But you’ve heard of Renee Good?

There are arguments we can put in place here . You might not have heard his name, Keith Porter Jr. because he was killed by an off duty ICE agent not on duty with a large crowd there. Might be because there’s little video evidence circulating around. But the main reason is because Keith Porter Jr. was a black man.

This is part of the reason for not using #SayHerName for Renee Good. 

No one’s even heard of Keith Porter Jr. No national attention for his murder but within 24 hours everybody knew Renee Good’s name.

This is the very reason #SayHerName was created for the invisible black women and black men who are causalities of the state, of state terror.

And it’s only now that white people are waking up to this terror when black people have been enduring if for centuries. This is why I argue to consider the language used and to give credit and recognition for where it originated, why it was created in the first place.

And yet the same stories are being used to justify the unlawful killings of Renee Good and Keith Porter Jr. They were both pointing weapons at ICE agents, posed a threat and had to be eliminated.

I say

2 different people

2 different cities 

but the same structural problem.

Later down the line this might get read as the one bad apple or one bad moment. But this is clearly a system which once hidden no longer neededs to remain hidden.

A system that is built without limits or accountability.

De facto special powers bestowed by the Trump administration on ICE that seem to supersede police powers. ICE is now inserting itself into everyday life and every day neighbourhoods. And as we are witnessing this very presence is killing people. Killing more and more people who weren’t even their targets.

But that no longer seems to matter.

As I’ve said before and I’ll say again, I don’t have an issue with the response to Renee Good – that’s how we should be responding in a situation like this. I just argue that the others, and there’s a long list that is growing of people who have been killed by ICE during this administration, deserve the same energy that is surrounding the murder of Renee Good.

As last time I checked, these are not animals, criminals or just talking points but human beings. Real human beings with grieving families. And this is something that gets forgotten in the media.

We need to continue to have these conversations and we need to keep fighting, on the small and large scale, against fascism near and far.

 

The Sinners Series – 005

| Sheree

With it being awards season and all, I felt called to watch Sinners again. This might have been my fifth or sixth time. I’m sorry, I’ve lost count. It still hasn’t lost its magic. The film just keeps on giving for me. To me.

This time, I’m struck by how many times freedom is mentioned. How to get free? How to be free? How to protect that freedom?

I think Sinners explores the price of freedom. The price of being free. There’s always a cost for attempting to live life on your own terms.

From the beginning, we might be introduced to sharecroppers, working for the white men, still on plantations. But this will be a self-sustaining community. More than bodies for working on the farms, the land they do not own. But they have each other. Each character is developed at the beginning of the film. The viewer is allowed to get to know them and see them in their element. They be vibrant and they be fixing to be free. Free from the restrictions of white supremacy culture, capitalism, patriarchy the whole shebang. And this isn’t without pain but also joy and laugher and love.

Sinners is what happens when a community, when people are living their own lives and are infiltrated by others, who want what they have. Outside threats come to ruin the day. Vampires come and covet what this community has. Sammie. Sammie has a gift, the gift of music that connects him with all ages. Griot.

Delta Slim’s says, “With this here ritual, we heal our people. And we be free.” This is the power of music and how a community can tell their stories through music. And outside forces, in this case vampires, who hear, see, realise this power, are threatened by it as well as want it. Want to control it take it away from this black community who are gain strength and sustainance through it all. And be free.

Sammie’s gift, the music, the very culture needs to be/ has to be protected from these outside threats at all costs. As culture, its very existence is threatened from being sucked dry by the devils coming tonight.

So as a people, as black people, we do whatever we can do to tell our own stories, protect and preserve our music, our culture as through this we heal. And we be free.

The verdict is in about the word of the year, 2026

| Sheree
Damon Davis and Kiki Salem

If you’ve been around here for a few years then you’ll know that I choose a word each year to act as a guiding source for the year ahead.

I hold this word lightly as a beacon to support my movement through the year as I navigate through society, this world, with the ebb and flow of commitments, responsibilities, projects and inspirations. 

Last year, fugitivity took hold of me and kept me refusing those things that have already been refused of me throughout the year. 

Fugitivity and visual journaling went hand in hand in 2025 to the point that I was able to create a loophole of retreat, a space of freedom and play for most of 2025. No doubt fugitivity is changing my life and remains in my rucksack as I traverse into 2026. The year of the horse ( more on that later).

So what is my word of 2026? 

Usually I have something chosen at the back end of Oct moving into November. It just comes to me, lands and takes up root as something that just feels right. And something I want to carry for a year or more and explore.

That didn’t happen this year. 

I had the feeling of being ‘unapologetic’ to the max but that felt, as a word, so dated. I feel it has been co-opted by mainstream and capitalist culture that to hear it now feel so twee for me. It’s original radical power being neutered.

Then we had radicale ( with an ‘e’) meaning to get to the basic root of something. Its natural origin. It’s fundamental and essential, changing from the roots. As well as radical being judged as unconventional, pushing things to the limits.

But again this word didn’t sit well within my gut. I wasn’t feeling it.

For me my word of the year has to be embrewed with feelings as well as be able to stand the test of time, the year and beyond, as well as act as talisman, inspiration and haven. Words of the past has included voice, water, shakti, open, listen, love etc. 

I have a tall ask for my word of the year but none of my words of the year so far has let me down. I suppose it’s a difficult act to follow after fugitivity as this practice has changed my life in so many ways.

But choose a word of the year I will because after so long in this practice, I would feel naked walking into 2026 without some word(s) at my back as support and/both motivator.

I’m making the commitment here now to go with – AfroSurreal – as my words of 2026.

Of course AfroSurreal is much more than a word it’s a whole artist and literary movement which blends the weird and absurd with the reality of blackness. That the reality of blackness, being black today is  surreal. 

AfroSurreal is  also a way of {BEING} that roots me further into the RIGHT NOW. Creating the future that has to happen right now. 

I’ll be exploring more and sharing about AfroSurreal over the next couple of days to get my basis understanding and direction down. And then look out for more posts about how I’m moving and shaking with AfroSurreal(ism) for the coming year.

I’m excited to see where this word will take me. A good sign if any that I’m chosen the right word ( movement) for 2026. 

Making myself comfy

| Sheree

After a busy week, where it felt as if I didn’t get a weekend, because I didn’t as I was permaculturing and fugitivity spreading, I’m making myself comfy and cosy.

I’m all wrapped up in bed, catching up with my creativity. Catching up with myself.

And I feel so grateful for this cosy fort, for the week I’ve enjoyed, mostly on my own terms, and for the weekend to come. Rest and creative fugitivity.

I’ve still got mothering and taxiing duties this evening but I feel, in my cosy fortress, I’m on my own time/space.

I get to play and be curious and satisfy my desires. And right now all I want to do is be here. Right. Now.

I’m safe. I’m warm. I’m stealing my life back. Each cosy, comfy fort at a time.

Well it happened …

| Sheree
Jug, Simeon Leigh, Loophole of Retreat Exhibition

I come here with a heart filled with joy, love and gratitude.

I put my heart, soul, care and dreams into the WOC Azadi Collective fugitivity visual journaling retreat today.

The time/space we created together was magical. We’re becoming a fugitive collective, creating mischief as we steal ourselves away. Steal our lives back from systems of oppression, systems we never consented to but find ourselves subjected it.

We refuse.

I have so much love and gratitude for Dal Kular who got me back to work with the collective. Dal sees my practices and processes around my visual journaling and fugitivity and constantly cheers me on, holds space and supports me to explore these further in collective/ collaboration with beautiful people.

What we created was powerful and ripe with possibilities. What we can do together is empowering and criminal. Disorderly and messy and so much needed.

There are other ways to {BE} and I’m all for exploring these further, deeper, together.

MORE.

Satda Planning and Dreaming

| Sheree
Strategy for Fugitivity Retreat

After a busy week of being here there bad everywhere, I come to the page after my Satda Permaculture Gathering.

I’m planning out my workshop for my fugitivity visual journaling retreat with WOC Azadi Collective tomorrow. And I’m excited but also apprehensive. I had so much I want to share but I don’t want to spend all our time together talking. I don’t want to lecture to the participants but I get so excited when I’m sharing anything visual journaling and fugitivity. For me they go hand in hand.

I’m also worried that the participants might not get what I’m on about. I’m not sure sometimes. What I’m doing? What I mean when I practice fugitivity?

I suppose I won’t know until I put words to the air and attempt to communicate these liberatory practices.

What I’m reading

| Sheree

I was reminded that I had this book in my stash while listening to Marquis Bey talk on an episode of This Is Hell!, titled ‘ To steal one’s life back: On the power of fugitive Blackness’

It made me run straight to the book and start reading it with the hope it will support my fugitivity practice as well as provide some juicy quotes for the workshop I’m facilitating with WOC Azadi Collective this Sunday about my fugitivity and visual journaling practices.

It’s all sold out but you can read about it here and get in touch if you’re interested in coming along to some other sessions in 2026.

#decemeberreflections2025