The increased acceptance of the LGBT community today has seen an expansion in the number
of commercial lesbian and gay magazines. While there are still a disproportionately small
number of magazines solely dedicated solely to the female queer community, there have been a
number of independently run magazines that have attempted to create an equal platform and
equal opportunities for gay women, including On Our Backs, Diva, Quim, KUTT, Girls Like Us,
and most recently DYKE_ON.
— Extract from extended essay
In response to the initial research undertaken in preparation for the extended essay, About Honey was perceived as a reaction against the many commercial gays mens magazine dominating queer spaces. Inspired by the lack of obviously queer and lesbian iconography in mainstream media, it aims to provide an alternative, youthful interpretation of lesbian history. Using found imagery and text from books, magazines, tv, films it will consider how both archival and current material can be used to curate a unique narrative of an under-represented, and often misrepresented, history of the lesbian identity.
Images and text used do not have to be explicitly queer, rather provide a representation of queer culture as seen through the eyes of a generation of young lesbians who grew up though the 1990's and early 2000's, who sought validation through projecting a queer identity onto a mostly straight mass media.
About Honey originated as an idea to create a small, low-budget zine to be distributed among the immediate community, as per most traditional queer publications. However, research indicated that there may be merit in reaching beyond zine publications in order to create a more visible identity for the lesbian community in the public eye. The project then expanded into a larger, higher quality publication that could be distributed in a number of independent book stored.