Zine-making workshops hosted by Visual Studies Platform at Central European University and organised by Magda Kopańska

Zines are small format publications that derive their name from ‘magazines’ and resemble the form of the classic periodical. Like with magazines, zines are the medium through which different ideas can be presented and their form and content are only limited by the ideas and materials at hand of the creator. Historically, zines were often used as tools for circulating the community’s knowledge and transferring ideas not accessible otherwise. It is because of this background that making zines is commonly a collective effort, and zine-making spaces are created to foster creativity and collaboration between people.

Zine-making workshops hosted at Central European University thanks to the funding of the Visual Studies Platform were a series of meetings open to CEU’s community. Five sessions were designed to introduce participants to different techniques and creative prompts to encourage ideas for the creation of small publications. Three out of these were led by guest artists Seth Weiner,  Zsófia Szemző and Guilherme Maggessi and the other two were composed by MA candidate and workshop organiser, Magda Kopańska. Overall, throughout these meetings, there were 22 participants engaged and they came to workshops from different CEU departments. During each session, the group worked on a unique zine or artistic project which later contributed to the small publication; these works were later shared with creators and organisers.

The sessions were designed to gradually introduce participants to different techniques and methods of organising and creating zine content. Because workshops were happening in the academic setting, an important issue present in all the exercises was how the zine creation reflected or contradicted formats followed in the academic work. Ultimately, meetings were space for participants to reset from their usual studying environment and known ways of formulating ideas; nonetheless, the creation of zines with the creativity and collaboration involved are both qualities valued in a university setting.

During the first session, participants created independent small publications which were made possible thanks to an introduction to common paper layouts, which were later assembled with the technique of collage and writing/drawing. These were done in response to a prompt “What question has occupied your mind recently and do you know the answer to it?”. This invitation induced a spirit of exploration and reflection on current issues present in student’s experiences which was reflected in their small zines. The second session led by guest artist Seth Weiner introduced the spirit of collaboration as participants were asked to utilise the technique of frottage (transferring objects on paper using rubbing motion and different art utensils) and to assemble every created page in a larger publication. The Rubbing Zine, as the publication was later called was digitised and shared with participants and framed with a cover designed by Seth Weiner. The Rubbing Zine has 150 pages and its copy has been submitted and accepted at the Viennese zine festival, Fanzineist Vienna – Art Book & Zine Fair, which will take place in May this year. The third session followed the idea of collaborative work and was centred around the topic of spatialising emotions and sentiments. Participants created a Map of Frustrations on which they expressed their daily annoyances and wider disappointments; these were all open-ended instructions and participating students chose a form suitable for them by engaging in a discussion. The third session was led by  Zsófia Szemző and oscillated around the technique of collage informed by the role of context in design and art work. After the artist's presentation on the meaning of montage and collage in reference to the shifting perspectives of elements assembled, participants were invited to give each other abstract prompts and respond to them with collages. These works were later assembled by Magda Kopańska and workshop participant Margarita Suvorova who brought collages together with a cover designed by Zsófia Szemző. The final zine Within People was later shared with everyone concerned and uploaded to an interactive platform Heyzine which allows the display with a flip book effect. The last session was also hosted by a guest artist, Guilherme Maggessi who introduced participants to his art practice and different transfer techniques used for replication of photographs and drawings. Involved students were asked to submit some of their photographs which they later worked on, replicating them with the use of transfer paper. This exercise aimed at the collaborative treatment of the presented material and common work on drawings which were swapped between people and respectively worked on by multiple creators. The Tracing Images Together was later assembled by Guilherme Maggessi and shared with participants also with the use of HeyZine platform.   

Students involved in zine-making workshops had a chance to explore different art techniques and organise the material together in publication format. This exercise informs the sense of individual and collaborative creation inspired by the well-known motives in art and design work, such as synthesis and abstraction and the role of context. These are all incentives also apparent in an academic setting and utilised in the academic writing which students encounter daily. Through an expansion of these qualities to a work on small format publications, participants could explore new avenues of their creativity and versatility of thought applied to create a tangible result.