Visit our virtual exhibition: Get your zine On!
Much of our ongoing promotion of the zine collection focuses on the diy aesthetics of zines, but Voices from the Underground prioritises the content and power of zines.
Feel the power of hearing a zine maker read from their own zine in their own voice and experience the zine collection beyond just the imagery and cover art.
Each week during July we will post a video from one of our awesome makers. Makers will read from their zines and may also discuss their thoughts around the creation of the zine, as well as their experiences of zine making.
Seleena Daye reading from Brown Girls issue 2
Nina Echo reading from Confined: lockdown diary
Rachel Lau reading from Family
Goska reading from Witch
Week 1 – Brown Girls #2 by Seleena Laverne Daye
Seleena Laverne Daye is a self -taught Textile artist, zine maker and workshop facilitator. Her work is bright and playful yet centres themes around race, class, sexuality and identity whilst taking inspiration from 90s popular culture and fandoms.
She is also co-editor/creator of Poor Lass, a zine and podcast that gives a platform for working class people to share their stories.
Week 2 – Confined: Lockdown diary by Nina
Nina started making zines under the name Echo Zines in 2001 (20 year anniversary this summer!). She writes about zine culture, queer-feminist activism, self-care, playing in bands (and being a music fan), and her stuffed bunny Chainsaw Bunny.
Some of her zine titles include Same Heartbeats, From Spice Girls to Riot Grrrls, Scissors & Chainsaws, and Confined – a diary comic she has been drawing since lockdown. She loves trading zines and talking about zines, so get in touch
Week 3 – Family by Rachel Lau
Rachel Lau is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and radio producer. Through audio storytelling, film photography, and zine-making, they contemplate what it means to experience longing in a world that is transient. They are interested in the process of death and decay, along with our mortal resistance to it.
In this imperialist-white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy (to borrow from bell hooks), they believe that creating and communing with one another is both a salve and a tool of resistance against these oppressive structures.
Currently, Rachel is a co-librarian of Queer Reads Library, a mobile library of independently published queer books and zines based in Hong Kong and Vancouver. They are also a recent graduate of the media studies program, with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian migration studies, at the University of British Columbia
Instagram: @racholauart
Week 4 – Witch : anarchofeminist zine by Gosia
Gosia Lawrynowicz born in Poland in 1977. Between 1992 – 2004 involved in many projects; like anarcha feminst group Wiedzma/Witch, Anarchist Federation, Friends of the earth also punk bands Fuck Finger and Echo Niepokoju. Since 2005 lives in London with her rescued dog Lucy and 2 cats.
Once you are finished watching, visit our virtual exhibition: Get your zine On! where we reflect on some of our favourite zines from the collection.
You can find similar video projects from:
the Queer Zine Library Behind the zines
https://www.queerzinelibrary.com/behind-the-zines/season1
the Swansea Zine Fest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJpZ5RjAZGo