Zines by zeniors

Last weekend I went to a Zine Master class at the Museum of Contemporary Art. What is a zine, you ask. It doesn’t rhyme with pine, but with magazine. Zines are photocopied, small issue (of maybe 10 or more) magazines.   Wikipedia describes it as “small circulation, non-commercial publication of original or appropriated texts and images”. It’s thought that the zine scene is mainly 15-year-olds, but that proved UNTRUE. While ‘zeniors’ is stretching it a bit, almost everyone there was over thirty, and some were a lot more than that.

Readers of my ‘old’ blog  will know that I make artist’s books. Though I like making them very much, it takes so looooong. Zines, I guess, are a ‘quick and dirty’ form of artist’s book. What is the difference? Well, there’s no difference really, according to one of the speakers.  For myself, I’d say that an artist’s book CAN be ‘unique’  whereas zines are always in an ‘edition’ (of more than one) – usually photocopied. 

There seemed to be a consensus among the speakers that zines are more creative and fresh than artist’s books. My personal view is that it depends which artist’s books you’ve been looking at.  ‘Fine binders’ concentrate on the craft of binding, and not on the content, so comparing that with zines is like comparing apples and oranges.  But zines are fun!  This weekend they will be having a Zine Fair at the MCA, as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I plan to go. Participants in the masterclass were invited to bring along their zines to sell, and take part in the fair. I have my subject, my drawings,…….but no. Two jobs, two courses, and innumerable other things have prevented me from making a zine. Bad, aren’t I?  Should be able to make one in an hour. It’s just finding the hour.