thenortherncharter

26 May 2018

ZINE WORKSHOP with artist and zinemaker Ellen Welsh

Open Library event at The Women Artists of the North East Library.

Anybody can make a zine! This workshop offers an introduction to making zines - absolute beginners and seasoned zinesters equally welcome.

WHAT'S A ZINE?
A zine (/ziːn/ ZEEN;) is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. Zines are either the product of a single person or of a very small group and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation.

WHY MAKE A ZINE?
As with other kinds of artworks, zines offer an accessible way to express appreciation, affection, anger, sadness, and catharsis. Or they can be made just Because. Zines have often been a medium for marginalised voices; an important tool for expressing stories and identities that rejects, or are rejected by, mainstream society.

WHAT'S THIS WORKSHOP ABOUT?
We will be looking at the artist's own zines, which often form part of her artistic practice, and her sources of inspiration for these. We will be having a chat about the history and different kinds of zines you can find in the world (fanzines, art zines, political zines, queer zines, perzines etc.)
But most of all we will be learning how to make your own zine, and how to reproduce it. The workshop will be a relaxed space to learn and experiment with different techniques such as collage, drawing, writing, sewing, and putting together different sizes and formats of zines! The focus of this workshop will be DIY cut-and-paste zine making, rather than digital techniques.
Information will also be available on how to reproduce, bind, and distribute your zines.

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Ellen Welsh is a recent fine art graduate from Newcastle University and studio member at The Newbridge Project, Gateshead. Blurring the line between zines and artists' books, she uses text and image and often invites the viewer to handle her work. Taking inspiration from confessional perzines of the 1990s such as Doris, she aims to cultivate an intimacy between the maker and the viewer. She hopes to express something about memory, nostalgia, temporality and diaristic experience to whoever is looking at her art.
Ellen is currently working on Issue 3 of her zine 'Sapphic' - a collaborative zine which pulls together writing and artwork by bisexual, lesbian and queer women in order to affirm solidarity between these groups, and the importance of queer spaces and story-telling.