Chaffey College Hosts Virtual Zine Workshop
By: Andrew Rodriguez
Chaffey College hosted their first virtual workshop on September 16, 2020 which is a part of a series of programs that The Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art has curated since the fall semester is being primarily done online and the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art galleries is closed to the public. These programs include lectures, conversations, workshops, tutorials and collaborative programs with artists from Chaffey College. It is free and open to the public which anyone can register on through Chaffey Wignall website. It will last from Sept. until Dec. 2020, and if students cannot make the workshops then the recordings of it will be posted on the Chaffey Wignall Museum website two weeks after the original date of the meeting.
The workshop is called Zines 101: History of Zines and Their Rising Popularity in Academia which was led by Rebecca Trawick who is the Director/Curator of the Wignall Museum. It was a lecture and workshop that showcased the importance of zines and its impact on academia as well how it impacted the culture. The first half of the workshop was a presentation on the history of the printing press and the evolution of zines throughout the years. Zines can be created by anyone and can be about anything, whether it is informational or about a specific interest there is no requirement to what a zine can be about. The earliest forms of zines were historical and contained information on various topics such as the Black Panthers, the East LA Student Walkouts and Workers Unions. Some examples of these types of zines are the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, La Raza and The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Zines in academia are important because they are able to offer different perspectives from every corner of life as well as educate people on movements such as the feminist movement or the student walkouts that occurred in 1968. They also provide an alternative to the annotated bibliography and can support the personal as well as reflective aspects of the information creation process.
After the presentation concluded, the workshop portion began, and the students were able to create their own zines with a simple piece of paper. Rebecca demonstrated how to do this through a YouTube video, and we followed the instructions so that we can create our own zines. It was very simple to do and required little to no materials besides a piece of paper which shows how easy it is for anyone to create their own zine and share it to the world. Chaffey has hosted zine festivals over the past three years where students are able to showcase their own zines and even create their own similar to what I did for this virtual workshop, but because of COVID-19 the organizers of the festival are not sure if they will host one next year.
If students are interested in zines and would like to learn more about them the library has a research database that goes more in depth with the history as well as give more examples.