Since our launch in April 2024, Antinormality Club has grown to be something way beyond our expectations: a global community of people working for social change and living with mental ill-health, distress and trauma. To mark the end of this year, our founder Anna and member G collaborated to explore our experiences of being part of the club. The result is this zine, produced by G, whose work can also be found on Instagram at sadboyarts_.

Over the past eight months, Antinormality Club has evolved from one person’s idea to a network of members across the world. It’s been exciting, intense, daunting, sometimes overwhelming, and often moving. As the year draws to a close, I wanted to share six lessons I’ve drawn from the experience of founding the club, along with a timeline of the journey so far.

April

Antinormality Club soft launches, with the aim of recruiting 10 members in 3 months.

May

Within two weeks of launching, 30 people have applied to join the club. We abandon plans for further launch promotion and focus on supporting our growing membership.

We publish our guiding principles, including our commitment to learning, accountability and collective liberation.

Antinormality Club is a journey into the unknown. It’s something we’ll build together, based on our collective needs, ideas and wisdom, and something that will never be fixed or finished. But taking an emergent approach doesn’t mean we have no direction. Instead of setting a destination and fixing a route, the development of the Club so far has been guided by a set of principles, centring the things we value and the ways we want to relate to each other.