Illustration by Aniela Murphy/Neltonmandelton.
The Rag Factory, Brick Lane, will be playing host to The London Zine Symposium on the 29th of May, an event celebrating DIY culture, promoting communal idea sharing and, naturally, selling a few zines. Inspired by the Portland Zine Symposium, it’s been running since 2005 and just keeps getting bigger. This year there are over 70 stalls dedicated to zines, small presses and comics, with crafty bits to see and do round every corner, as well as discussions, readings and workshops.
The Symposium runs from 12pm, kicking off with the kids’ comic workshop, making things nice, and monstrous, (pretend to be my guardian? Anyone?) and all through the day you can make your own artist trading cards! They’ll be providing all the ingredients you need, though you’re welcome to take along your own cutouts and magazine bits. These excite me more than necessary, probably because I always wanted to be a Pokémon…
The first discussion of the afternoon will focus on the DIY ethos of zine-making and its applications in the wider world – a must for anyone interested in subverting mainstream media and working their socks off to get heard. It’s not limited to the world of paper either, they’ll also be talking about forming bands and organising spoken word tours. Charlotte Cooper, a queer fat researcher and activist, and Josie Long, that stand- up comedian, are among those reading from selections and the event will be nicely rounded off by Tea Hvala and a collaborative writing working, taking the surrealist drawing game the exquisite corpse and translating it to writing, so that each story becomes everybody’s story.
Illustration by Aniela Murphy/Neltonmandelton.
I asked Edd Baldry, one of the organisers, about the superiority of zines to blogs, the importance of DIY culture, and whether they’ve ever been overwhelmed by care bears…
Could you tell us a bit about the beginnings of the London Zine
Symposium? What inspired you to start it up? Was it very popular at
first? How has it grown?
Edd Baldry : I was part of a collective squatting a cool building in central
London, which we’d called the Institute for Autonomy. I was helping to
run an infoshop in the space as well as producing a large collective
zine – Rancid News – which we distributed across the UK and Europe. So
I was interested in getting more zine kids involved in radical spaces and radical spaces having zines that weren’t necessarily explicitly
political. I’ve got to acknowledge though that the name, and the
inspiration, was taken wholesale from the Portland Zine Symposium who
do an awesome event in the US north-west every year.
From our point of view it was really popular straight away. I wish
all the projects I’m involved with were this easy to organise. We had
about 400 people come, with 12 stalls, at the first event and it’s
grown steadily each year. Last year we had about 1,400 people come along, with 64 stalls selling their wares.
What, exactly, is a zine and what part does it play in DIY culture?
What makes a good zine? In this techno-focused age, what’s their
attraction? Isn’t it easier and quicker to start/read a blog?
EB: A zine is really whatever you want it to be. The only caveat is that
it’s something that you produce yourself for yourself – at least
that’s what I think of when I think of zines. I think that zines have
been a vital part of DIY culture since they became prevalent in the
punk and radical scenes in the late 70s. Riot Grrrl’s a pretty good
example where the ideas and culture of that scene were communicated
through zines just as much as they were through the music.
It’s difficult to say what makes a ‘good’ zine – there’s such a variety that there’s no magic bullet. There are zines that are amazing
because they’re beautifully illustrated, others because the
illustrations look like a three year-old drew them. I guess anything
that has passion for something in them is interesting and zines are no
exception.
I think the attraction of zines has grown as the internet has. Having
something that is tangible and final is quite attractive in a world of
24 hour rolling news and ever changing churn of the internet. Also,
zines can be read when you’re having a bath, a definite advantage over computers!
Does the zine scene go through fads and phases like every other scene?
Have you ever been overwhelmed by frogophiles, or carebear
afficionados, for instance?
EB: No, the symposium’s yet to be overrun by carebear or frog zines. But
yeah the zine scene does tend to go through waves every few years. A
few years ago it felt like it was totally dominated by punk zines, in
2007/8 it felt like a lot of people who made comics started consciously
making them as zines. More recently it seems like a lot of
illustration students have been really taken by making zines. Those
trends tend to be reflected in the people who apply for stalls at the
London Zine Symposium – this year we’ve had loads of applications from
various groups of students around the country.
What is the zine scene like in London? Do you think there’s a good
level of community? What kind of people get into it?
What are a few of your favourite zines? Is there anyone you’re excited about meeting
at the symposium?
EB: I think there’s a pretty vibrant zine scene in London. A lot of that
has to do with the group of people running the Alternative Press
project that’s done a bunch of small scale events at places like the
Foundry, as well as a couple of larger ones at the St Aloysius centre
near Euston. It’s meant that there’s now zine events happening throughout the year in London, which can only be a good thing. And yeah, there’s certainly a supportive scene amongst zinesters, there’s
not much machismo or competiveness that you get in other scenes that
I’ve been heavily involved with.
I’m not sure there’s one type of person that makes zines; it takes all sorts. I guess it’s people who feel they have something to say but
don’t want to go through the traditional channels to express
themselves. And I’ve discovered so many great people and great zines
whilst being involved that that’s a pretty impossible question to
answer. Though Maximum Rock N Roll, Punk Planet, My Evil Twin Sister,
Inside Front, 12o5 and Scanner will always have a place close to my
heart!
At the symposium I’m looking forward to meeting Matthew Murray – who’s
running the artist trading card exchange – and Geoff – who’s running
the kids comix workshop. And of course in general I’m just looking
forward to seeing old friends from across the continent!
How important do you think DIY culture is? What are your views on DIY as a form of resistance to mainstream media and their messages?
EB: I think DIY’s vital. I think it gives resources and space for radical thought to grow and exist and hopefully gives an alternative to the
hegemony of mainstream culture. You need a radical culture to exist for any radical change to happen. DIY is, obviously, way bigger than
just zines though. I think zines can be used by radicals as a way to quickly communicate with people, but I’m not sure that making a zine
is necessarily inherently radical. But DIY, in general, is certainly
a corner stone in any anti-authoritarian organising be it squatting
social centres, taking over the streets or organising a really
awesome gig!
I like the idea of artist trading cards! Will there be other crafty
things to see and do around the symposium? And why is the comic
workshop only for kids?
EB: Yeah, the artist trading cards should be cool. And I know it’s a shame
that the comic workshop is only for kids, but then again kids tend to
get left out of zine culture sometimes, so it’s cool that they’re going to have their own space at this year’s Symposium.
Do you organise any events based around DIY
culture other than the LSZ? If so, what are they and how can people
get involved?
EB: There’ll be another zine in a day project at this year’s symposium, which hopefully will be printed on the day itself if all goes according to
plan. I’m afraid LZS is enough of an event to last us all a full year.
We all put on DIY gigs, organise protests, work in social centres and
what have you, but nothing on the scale of the Zine Symposium!
The Individual Zine Rocks table encourages people with just one zine
to get involved, first-timers or small scale creators; do you have any
tips for people interested in getting into the zine scene on getting
heard about?
EB: It’s tricky to give specific pointers, though it’s worth reading Alex
Wrekk’s ‘Stolen Sharpie Revolution’, which does a really good job of
explaining the zine scene and all it’s myriad quirks. If you’re interested in making a zine you should just make one. Better to have tried and failed than not have tried at all! If you wanna get heard about come along to zine events, trade zines with other people and
make sure you get copies into any shop that will have them!
You heard what the man said! Come along to the London Zine Symposium, The Rag Factory, Henage Street, just off Brick Lane, Saturday 29th May 12-6pm. Our original listing is posted here.
Written by Amelia Wells on Thursday May 27th, 2010 2:39 pm
Categories ,Aniela Murphy, ,Charlotte Cooper, ,diy, ,Edd Baldry, ,London Zine Symposium, ,Neltonmandelton, ,Portland Zine Symposium, ,squatting, ,Tea Hvala, ,zines
Similar Posts:
