Cultivating change through collage: Reflecting on creating a zine as arts-based knowledge mobilization of basic income research


Chloe Halpenny, Queen's University; Kendal David, Carleton University

In 2017, the former Ontario provincial government introduced a basic income pilot as a policy experiment to test better ways to address poverty. For just over a year and a half, 4,000 low-income Ontarians received a monthly unconditional cash transfer. Despite being slated to last three years, the pilot - and the research associated with it - was prematurely cancelled by the incoming Ford government in 2018. A project from the Basic Income Canada Youth Network (BICYN), "Room to Dream" is a 32-page, full-colour zine that combines research and art to provide an accessible and compelling account of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot and its effects on participants lives. Featuring handmade collages and anonymized quotes from pilot participants drawn from two separate research projects which collected data from the pilot in the face of the cancellation, it foregrounds lived experience while providing powerful evidence about alternative approaches to income security in Canada. Authored by Chloe Halpenny and Kendal David - PhD students and co-chairs of BICYN - "Room to Dream" represents a sincere effort to preserve knowledge about this short-lived policy endeavour. As of January 2024, we have distributed more than 1100 copies of “Room to Dream” across Canada and beyond. has found its way to zine libraries, elected officials, frontline organizations, classrooms, and book clubs. In this session, Kendal and Chloe shed light on why zines are an effective medium for sharing research with a broad public audience, and discuss their experiences creating and distributing the zine. In particular, they discuss the importance of arts-based methods for sharing knowledge about basic income (and why they loved using collage for this project). 

This paper will be presented at the following session: