Zine Workshop

During layout on day one. L-R: Dahlia, Biko, Molemo, Sibusiso and Sicelo.

Day two: Biko, Dahlia and Sbu assembling their zines.

These are some images from a two day zine workshop I gave at the beginning of the December @ Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg. I've been using zines a lot in my practice for the better part of this year and as a way to make something physical/non-digital that shares work or transfers ideas, i find it extremely valuable now. I've even made one here in SA that's functioning not just as an end in itself but as the focal point for a larger collaborative project.

So the idea for this workshop was to basically share everything I know about low cost self publishing, get people excited about the possibilities of it by showing my own zines and the work of other artists and photographers who work with zines (the participants were all photographers) and, as the main exercise of the workshop, have everyone go through the process of producing their own zine.

Long story short, the workshop was excellent. I think it was really a pleasure for all of us to go through learning different things together. Mostly it made me think about doing at home what I've been trying to do in SA. On this residency I've been very concerned with finding ways to share and be useful and make things that are valuable to people here, and I'm very much measuring the success of my trip in those terms. Doing this workshop I thought 'Why am I not like this at home?'. And just asking the question opened up a map of things I want to do when I get back, and made me think of all the people at home who are concerned with actively sharing and making the place richer and more fertile, and really makes me want to join that list.

Again, sincerest thanks to Photo Workshop for facilitating, and especially to Bafana, Biko and Molemo who worked to put this workshop together.

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