Heya, Mya here! I’m Tuesday Night Project’s Volunteer Co-Coordinator and resident zinester (though I can’t claim that title all alone; we have multiple zinesters on staff). My TN Labs workshop, The Zine Zone w/ Mya, ended last month. As each of our series wraps, we’ll be sharing some of the behind-the-scenes and highlights from the workshops!
First off, TN Labs is an offering for you: combining the many skills of Tuesday Night Project’s staff with our ethos of art+community. We have some awesome workshops in-store, from food to DnD and the artistic process. That being said, The Zine Zone was our trial run! A way to figure out an online workshop series. I want to thank everyone who helped us put it together, including our lovely staff and all our wonderful attendees.
So, what are zines? Zines are small-scale publications created by you, not a book publisher. They’ve evolved as people’s access to printing did, from typewriters to home printers to the internet. And because they’re a much easier avenue of self-publishing, zines have been used throughout the 1900s and 2000s by marginalized people to express themselves, communicate with others, and organize their communities.
The Zine Zone’s focus was on one-page zines: zines that only use one sheet of paper and minimal office supplies. I believe zines are best when they’re simple, experimental, and fun (though that’s my own philosophy!). The hope was that attendees could mess up and try different things out — using one piece of paper they could make one, even two, or three different zines.
And folks ran with it! As a facilitator, my role was pretty simple: throw a zine format at people and see what they did with it. There were SO many creative zines made during each workshop. Folks played with words, color, form, even topography! I hope if you’re reading this, you’ll try making a zine too.
Below, you’ll find a link to a Google folder with each session’s materials, including instructional graphics, slides, and video. Share your zines using the hashtag #TNZineZone!
If you missed out on The Zine Zone, we have more exciting workshops coming your way. Next month is TN Labs: All Things Food, facilitated by Sophia Chang! And if you want to make a zine with me, I’ll be facilitating more zine-making with traci kato-kiriyama during Tea & Letter Writing this October.