ZINE MAKING WORKSHOP
Our programme of workshops for Newham Heritage Month 2024 continued with a Zine Making Workshop on the 12 June. Back in the day, before the internet, with a pair of scissors, glue sticks and the humble photocopier, enthusiasts around the globe communicated via a world of DIY fanzines, posters and flyers!
Artist Pete Bennett led the workshop, here is how it went in his words:
“We slowed the casual click/click/click of today to the careful snip… snip… snip… and paste of yesteryear. Hacking phone tech to reduce and enlarge, zoom or remove, and replicate photocopy c1979 without a photostat machine or a Gestetner in sight. This is Radical Nostalgia: engaging parts of the brain that aren’t necessary for today’s existence, but we absolutely need to feel alive. We think with our eyes and intellectualise with hands and tools.
One person memorialised their pet- pet zines are a much-needed and heeded subgenre, check it out- and found themselves in a calm, creative space they’d left behind as a child. Another, a teenager, embarking on a fine art degree journey, got cathartic, watershed and used it to move themselves forward, look towards new frontiers. It was ace. We had fun. Zines, collage, montage, snip it up, hack the tech, make it work for you. Don’t ‘Add Grain?’ to your photos in your apps. Live grainy. Kick out the zines. Peace n Xerox.”
