‘Dance, drag, chaos’: This zine pays homage to queer friendship (2025)

Last March, photographer, stylist and producer Gracie Brackstone made the difficult decision to relocate to London from Manchester. Never without her camera, Brackstone documented this transitional period on film. Marking one year since the move, the Dazed Club member has released Growing Pains and Thank You Notes, a 76-page zine featuring pictures and poems that delineate a year of love, loss and gratitude. From party to protest, euphoria to grief, Growing Pains and Thank You Notes captures the sheer breadth of emotions she’s felt along the way.

Brackstone’s move to London was the product of necessity, a symptom of a problem that many young creatives face today. “I was jobless in Manchester for a long time. I couldn’t afford my rent anymore,” she tells Dazed. For a while, she crashed on friends’ sofas, desperate to make it work in the city she considered home. “I had lots of people tell me they were rooting for me which was so touching but I recognised I needed a way out.” Somewhat reluctantly, she landed a job in London. “I had to do what I had to do.”

“I was part of this beautiful community in Manchester, a social network of people who I saw every day. Our lives were so intertwined,” she says, recalling how difficult she found moving away from her friends. “They bring so much dance and drag and chaos to my life in all the best ways.” She harnessed the uncertainty of a new city, of new people, new friends; moulding it into a vessel for creative discovery through which she pays homage to the communities that made her feel so loved. “I believe love can fix anything – and this is what the queer community gave to me. Love is never lost – not with distance, not with time.”

One year on and, while more settled, Brackstone still finds London bittersweet. “I now have a beautiful friendship group in London who I adore and a girlfriend who I love. I’ve done a lot in terms of work and I feel more politically engaged now than ever, going to meetings, rallies and protests. It’s like I’ve unlocked my next level. But, equally, I always have this feeling of wanting to run back to Manchester.”

When Brackstone first started the zine last March, it was a thank you note to her friends – a keepsake of their collective memories. It was her way of expressing what she’d left unsaid to those she’d left behind. “So much love, sadness, guilt, unpaid debts – cigarettes, club entry, listening ears. I had so much to say to all the people in my life.”

Over the summer of 2024, she unexpectedly lost a close friend, Ashiq. “Grief changes your whole life. It alters your world view, your work, your relationships.” This period of unprecedented turbulence caused her to momentarily pause on the project. “After some time had passed, I was reflecting on the year and realised I needed to finish this. I wanted to channel how I felt about what we’d been through, my friends and I.” While the premise of the zine remained the same, she also used it as an outlet for writing poetry and prose of a darker genre that aided her in processing her grief. “Losing a sister, someone we all loved so much. It still doesn’t even feel real. I made the zine as a way of putting into words and visuals what had happened.”

“Living in London and being so far away from many of the people who feel the same pain and the loss that I feel about losing Ashiq, makes the whole situation not feel real. I feel like I am completely disassociated from it.” She continues: “It’s important to feel what you need to feel, but what's next? This is where I think activism comes to assist me, because there’s always something you can do to help others and sometimes you just need to find a reason to do so.”

In a broader political context amid fascist and technocratic regimes that perpetuate harmful rhetoric, trans rights are increasingly under attack. “We need to stand up for the trans community, with the rising far right,” says Brackstone. “Figures such as Trump and Musk embolden bigoted behaviour and violence. It’s important to show and share these stories, the highs and lows of the queer experience.”

“We organise, we resist, we fight and we co-exist in headspaces of mindfulness,” she says.Considering photography to be a tool for dialogue and activism, a vehicle for visibility, Brackstone feels as though she has a duty to document what she sees. “I think it comes from being the child of someone who struggled with and eventually lost their life to addiction,” she says. “I often had to cover stuff up. I hated it. Then, in my teen years, I realised that lying for someone wasn’t helping them or me. Because of this, I feel like I have to tell the world about the bad stuff that’s going on.”

“I always try to speak through my art about the experiences that young people in the UK are facing, whether it be standing up for trans rights or the impacts of the cost of living,” she says, noting that she finds the coolest kind of person to be one who really, truly and deeply cares about others. “I want everyone to feel seen and loved and that’s the reason behind my photography.”

In Ashiq’s memory, all proceeds from the sale of Growing Pains and Thank You Notes will go to Mermaids, a charity supporting trans, non-binary and gender-diverse young people. “I think [Ashiq] would like people to reflect on the life she lived and the magnitude of this loss we now all feel and I guess put our feelings to good use,” says Brackstone. “While things changed and we lost someone close to us, the love and memories will always be something that I cherish. I wanted Growing Pains and Thank You Notes to be something physical for everyone – a reminder that, even on the worst days, they’re loved.”

Growing Pains and Thank You Notes is available to buy here now.