Bristol 650 Zine

2023 marks the 650th anniversary of Bristol becoming independent from other county authorities. This year gives us the opportunity to not only look back at more than six centuries of the city, but also to think about how we might build a better Bristol of the future. Bristol Ideas has brought together essays from over 30 contributors, addressing some of the challenges the city faces and sharing ideas about how we might meet them.

There is never just one story of a place. Bristol is a city that holds many contested and contradictory narratives that it tells, or doesn’t tell, about itself.

Bristol is already a city of solutions, and many of the essays highlight good work already underway in the city. We offer this project in the hope that they will encourage us all to learn more about the city, past and present, provide a guide for thinking about the future, and inspire us all to produce new ideas. We can all help to build a better Bristol. 

This zine has been created alongside the printed publication Bristol 650: Essays on the Future of Bristol. You can read a PDF copy here. You can read the two publications together or separately. We invite you to use this zine has a handbook, a guidebook for making change. We live in Bristol, but many of these ideas and resources can be used wherever you live.

There are so many ways you can equip yourself to make positive change in this world. We’ve squeezed as much content in this zine as possible – have a play and click around on illustrations and icons – many will lead you to articles, films, websites and organisations. We have purposefully blank spaces in the zine for you to write, draw, doodle, note – you might find that you want to print this off so that you have a hard-copy to scribble along with and keep by your side.

We hope that you enjoy exploring the ideas that are presented here. If you do have any feedback, please email info@bristolideas.co.uk

Happy exploring!