Explore

BEYOND Zine

BEYOND Zine ‘26

The BEYOND Zine ‘26 will gather stories, practices, demands, reflections, and artistic responses from the Culture Action Europe Satellite BEYOND gatherings across Europe in 2026. This zine’s goal is not only to serve as documentation of the Satellite events, but also as a collective way of making visible what is often fragmented, localised, or unheard. In short, it is the report of the event, but not in a traditional report format.

Across Europe, cultural actors are responding to persistent structural challenges such as precarious working conditions, shrinking civic space, unequal access to resources and visibility, democratic backsliding and polarisation, and increasing pressure on culture to “justify” its value. These realities, while not new, are evolving, and they are being addressed in deeply situated ways at local and regional levels all across the cultural sector.

The BEYOND Zine ‘26 seeks to collect these responses and reactions to local realities, show patterns and differences across regions, contextualise to the reader why these issues persist and highlight what is already being done to counteract them. And, importantly, the zine format allows us to do this in ways that are poetic, compelling and creative, creating more accessible pathways to understanding and engaging with our network's goal of cultural policy advocacy.

What is a zine?

A zine is a self-published, non-commercial print work, typically produced in small, limited batches. Historically and culturally, zines have offered a platform for voices and ideas that are often deemed too niche, radical, or outside the mainstream of traditional publication. As the

Bindery Collective⁠

puts it: "A zine can be produced with the simplest of tools, and easily distributed low-to-the-ground, outside capitalistic or potentially oppressive systems."

Zines

have long been⁠

tools of resistance and radical self-expression, offering

marginalised voices⁠

a platform to challenge dominant narratives. Rooted in DIY ethos, they democratize storytelling, making them vital to social movements

across the world⁠

. Zines provide a unique platform for self-expression, using different media—writing, drawing, photography, collages—to explore ideas or share personal experiences.

⁠

See our zine from Beyond 2025

⁠

What Will Be Collected

We want to collect situated knowledge! Each Satellite will invite participants to share materials such as (but not limited to!):

Photos from the event

Short essays or reflections

Quotes, fragments, or notes from discussions

Speeches or keynotes form the event

Policy recommendations or demands

Maps or mapping of the area, walks or tours

Descriptions of concrete practices and experiments

Poems, visual work, sketches, or photographs

Video or audio contributions (or excerpts)

Micro-manifestos or declarations

Open questions that remain unresolved

Something else?

Language & Translation

Contributions will be collected in their original languages. Contributors will be invited (but not required) to provide an English translation. Where no translation is provided, CAE may choose to use AI-assisted translation, clearly indicated.

How we will create and share

CAE will collect content before and during each Satellite event. Each Satellite event can count on one member of CAE onsite to specifically support with this zine. The design and production of the zine will be done by CAE and published digitally within 2 weeks of each Satellite event. Each zine will be shared publicly on the CAE website and social media, with the hopes that Satellite hosts and participants share widely as well. Contributions to the zine might also be referenced or published standalone in CAE reporting or blogposts for future dissemination outside the scope of the Satellites.

BEYOND Zine Principles

✨ Plurality There is no single European cultural reality. The zine will intentionally hold multiple, sometimes conflicting perspectives side by side.

✨ Substance The zine should not only be a beautiful overview of what took place at each Satellite. (But they DO aim to be beautiful!) Contributions should help contextualise what the realities are of people, communities, and neighbourhoods in each region.

✨ Actionability Readers should be able to use this zine: • to reference language • to borrow framing • to point to concrete practices • to support advocacy or policy conversations

✨ Collective but curated While submissions can take many/endless forms, the zine itself will be curated by CAE to ensure coherence, legibility, and narrative flow.

✨ Accessibility Beyond the Network The zine should include the voices of and be engaging to even those across the sector who have never attended a CAE event or engaged with European cultural policy before

⁠

Download this document

⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ··· in the right corner or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.