Candace Mooers was in high school when she started to make her own zines.
“[My friends and I] were kind of looking for a way to define ourselves and mainstream magazines weren’t cutting it,” she said. “Everything was about dieting and what make-up to use and how to get boys to date you.”
They created “Senseless Ramblings”, a zine – which is a self-published, not-for-profit magazine that is photocopied for distribution – focused on local music and arts communities, band profiles, show reviews and pieces of creative writing.
Mooers, the executive director of Gallery Connexion, will give the public the opportunity to learn about how to create their own zine this week as part of the Celestial City Arts and Culture Festival. The festival runs from September 14-17 and acts as an alternative to the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.
The festival is in its second year and is presenting local art, documentary film screenings, workshops, music and comedy over four days.
Mooers is facilitating the hands-on, all ages zine-making workshop on Saturday at 2pm. Participants will learn about the history of zines and will work on a collaborative cut and paste print publication.
“It’s going to be kind of a show-and-tell,” Mooers said with a laugh. “I may bring a small suitcase of zines for people to look at and touch and read.”
Mooers, a Fredericton native, studied history at UNB before moving to Toronto to study communications and culture. She said she’s always held an interest in media democracy and concentration.
She said zines were a really important mode of communication before the internet.
In the earlier part of the last century science fiction writers grew tired of having their material published in science fiction magazines, so they started an underground network of their own producing zines. The art form exploded and different genres of zines began to form, some focusing on fandom and others telling personal stories.
“Zines come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and forms, and they’re about lots of different things,” Mooers said. “[They’re] very accessible.”
The workshop is open to all ages, and just as types of zines can vary, so can ages and experience of zinesters. Mooers said the art form is refreshing and attributes a recent resurgence in zines to the culture of staring at computer screens for hours a day.
“You literally get your hands dirty – you’re cutting and pasting with scissors and glue, and after a long day in the office it’s refreshing to work with my hands and play around with a different medium,” she said.
Mooers said participants of the workshop will make a page for the collaborative zine out of half of a letter-sized page and are encouraged to bring materials like drawings, photographs and pieces of fabric with them.
“[That’s what’s] special about zines: it’s very physical,” she said. “Websites get deleted, things kind of disappear, it seems, in the land of the internet.”
At the end of the workshop the zine will be photocopied and each participant will get a copy.
The festival is also screening renegade film documentary Blank City tomorrow night, as well as Comedy Night with TV Party, B.J. Worthy and Guests on Thursday, a show by renowned percussionist Jerry Granelli on Friday, and a showcase of Canada’s obscure independent music on Saturday. For the full schedule visit the Celestial City Arts and Culture festival’s Facebook page.
