Meet GU Routes

G-You Magazine speaks with Gu Routes about kindness, inclusivity, and the importance of representation.

An interview with GU Routes. The University of Glasgow’s new magazine ‘by ethnic minorities, for everyone.’ The magazine was founded by three students:  Juneyna Kabir, Indigo Korres, and Maarya Omar. It is a platform for creatives, designed with kindness and inclusivity at its core. Current threads editor Holly speaks to Indigo and Maarya about their work so far.

Can I get you to introduce yourselves for us over at G-You Magazine and explain who you are?

 Indigo: I am Indigo, I use She/Her pronouns. I study Film and Tv at the University of Glasgow. I am in my third year and I am the LGBTQ+ officer for the SRC as well. I got involved with routes last year, we basically had the idea to start a BAME magazine on campus because we thought there was a lack of representation and support for PoC students.

Maarya: I am Marya, I am the Co-editor for GU Routes. I guess we started it because we felt, not only that there was a lack of representation for PoC people, but that we wanted to be able to celebrate the achievements and work of people of colour. So, it was more of a collective identity rather than just segregated pieces. I think this specific society, and eventually, the magazine would be more of a step into bringing the Glasgow community into seeing that there is so much diversity within ethnicity. We want that to be a celebration rather than just looking at the negative aspects that people of colour face. To show that within those trials and tribulations there is so much beauty out there and that beauty, is what we wanted to encompass within all our ideas. Indigo is an artist herself and a soon-to-be filmmaker, I am an art admirer, I do not do art, I like to read, Juneyna is an amazing writer. It was kind of like, we have all these amazing skills and we wanted to find other people who enjoy that and want to do that as well.  

Who is Routes for? Who can get involved?

 Indigo and Maarya: Anyone.

Maarya: When we created Routes, our tag line is ‘a magazine by ethnic minorities, for everyone.’ Our main priority is to include ethnic minorities, but we do not disregard anyone else. We want the audience to be able to learn and understand even if they are from varying backgrounds that there is this whole platform of people coming together to share their work.

Why did you decide to start Routes? Was there a defining moment that sparked this?

Indigo: We know people from GUM and we know people from Qmunicate. and I think they are amazing platforms, but we always thought there was a lack of support for PoC students. We just want to be able to share the work. We know loads of PoC groups on campus and we wanted to create a platform for them to showcase what they are doing. I do not think there was a specific moment, we just got together.

Maarya: I think there was a collective build-up, where we just found that there wasn’t enough support and we wanted there to be a safer environment for people to really express themselves; without having any censorship or any backlash against their specific ethnicity or race. Just to allow themselves to be free.

Where did the magazine name come from?

Maarya: The magazine name took a while. We had so many options.

Indigo: We wanted it to be one impactful word.

Maarya: We wanted to be like Adele. Originally, I think we went through ten different titles and then I came up with ‘roots of colour.’ We really liked that, but we wanted something that would roll off your tongue really quickly and you would know who we are. Then we decided just ‘roots’, but that was the title of a movie, so we went on to ‘routes.’ I think that makes sense because what we are trying to do is bring everyone’s routes together and show that we’ve all come from different walks of life and we all have met in Glasgow and then we will all take our own routes coming out of Glasgow. It also goes into your identity, what your roots are. A play on that.

Who are your creative inspirations? Is there anyone out there who is inspiring you to do the work that you are doing?

Indigo; We follow loads of PoC artists. Not only PoC, we like to focus on intersectionality, so, we also follow lots of disabled and PoC artists, trans PoC, and queer women of colour. I think lots of those artists inspire us, there is no specific magazine that inspires us, but those collective artists inspire us.

Maarya: We are very interested in the smaller artists, the up and coming artists, that have made their way through social media. Right now, I have been really interested in climate in colour. Which is a woman who addresses climate change with being black, and of colour, and how the two interlink. She describes what it means to be a black woman and what it means to be a climate activist in a time like this; also using creative insight to be able to share it with her platform.

What does it mean for you to be able to create a positive creative space for ethnic minorities?

Maarya: It’s mainly just about sharing kindness. Being open to whoever you are, and wherever you come from. To not be judged by your skin colour, your ethnicity, your culture or where your background is. It is about creating a safe and inclusive environment that does not discriminate against that. I will stress that kindness aspect, it is just to have that platform where you do not censor them, you do not gaslight them, you do not belittle them for not being what you expect or want; just celebrating that diversity.

Indigo: I think it is really good to have representation. For me, it means a lot to have representation because that is how I discovered myself. We are trying to share that.

What can we expect to see from you next?

 Indigo: We have quite a lot of plans. We are planning to share loads of content and also create our own content, and then in the next year, we are planning to create an actual magazine. With, all the content we have created throughout the year. I think that is our main plan at the moment.

Finally, Are you open to new contributors?

Maarya: All the time. Although it is by ethnic minorities, we do not have a problem with other backgrounds helping us create this piece. That was one of the things, that going into it, we did not want it to be a fight. We want it to be a bridge that brought people together.

You can see what Gu Routes have been up to recently by following them on Instagram: @guroutes