Thoughts on Ghost Lab Comics

I’m currently writing an article about the comics Ghost Labs. Here’s a short extract that I think makes sense on it’s own. Do comment if you have any thoughts…

While playing, Huizinga claims, “the child is making an image of something different, something more beautiful, or more sublime, or more dangerous than what he usually is” (14, emphasis in original). This is an apt description of the comics created during the Barnsley Ghost Lab. Participants were able to create and explore alternative beautiful, sublime, dangerous, accepting or just worlds, but worlds nevertheless grounded in the reality of their lives and their communities. In WwSH, the magic circle of the Ghost Lab appeared to allow participants space to explore not just the ‘as if’ or ‘what if’, but also what Bloch (1986) has called the ‘not-yet’, thereby conjuring with both personal and political historical alternatives that could have been taken, but were not. Within a community of value such as Unite the Union, this re-imagining through comics has powerful potential and can, as Capous Deyllas and Sinclair (2014) have argued in the case of zine-making, be viewed as a form of transformative learning.

Sarah