The Zine Fair!

So the Zine Fair was upon us, and we were ready. We arrived at the venue to see many students were ready and set up, so we joined them in getting everything out and ready to sell. We were sharing a table with other art history students and it was interesting to see the difference in what we had all made! Once the table was set out we all got to have a look around at everyone else's zines. I was really impressed by the quality of what everyone had created as well as there being an amazing range of different zines to choose from. I feel that everyone's presentation was fantastic and it was impressive to see everyone together as a group again to get selling!

To be honest I didn't expect as many people to come to fair as what did, the turn out was really good and really did get quite busy. For just being a student fair I believe that it really was a success. We sold around six of our zines and several of our postcards too so its always nice to see that people liked our zine!

So overall I believe the fair was a success, I enjoyed my time there and loved seeing what everyone else had done. I believe from the whole process I have learnt to work in a group more successfully as I usually dread the prospect of group work, however I feel like I have played an important role in the whole process and that we have worked well together. I believe it has been really useful throughout the progress meetings to get opinions from others outside your own group, there is a real sense of collaboration between everyone and everybody is really helpful to one another.

I have enjoyed the experience of being able to see something be created which started only from an idea, it has been a great experience to see this in action, I do believe that I now have a greater interest in zines, and I admire anyone who goes through the complete stress of creating them!

The Exhibizine Team

Other Unit X Exhibitions I've Visited

After working on our own Unit X project and only really seeing what students were doing in the Zine Fair, I found interesting to be able to visit others exhibitions.

I visited the Triskaidekaphobia Exhibition by a group of Film & Media and Fashion students. This exhibition was held in a little shop in Stevenson Square, I really enjoyed the exhibition, the space was only small however I feel they used it well by using literally every corner!  

Another exhibition I visited was by the Design Festival from the Blue Sky Thinkers College. This exhibition was held in the gallery space 'Self Made' underneath Bench in the NQ.
I can easily say I was really impressed with this exhibition, I thought the quality was fantastic, I was impressed with how technical and professional everything looked. The exhibition was both fun and interactive and had a great turn out. All the work looked superb and I feel the it held a real meaning for Manchester, and you could clearly see how the collaboration between students had been fully successful. Very impressed.

Planning the Zine Fair

So now that we had completed all the zines, we were wondered what else we could have for sale at the fair, as we thought it would be better to have something else on the table too. We decided that postcards would be a nice addition to sell, so our favorite selected pages from the zine were made into little postcards, by being printed onto photo paper. I really like the little postcards, I think they are a nice addition and are a success.

The postcards.

One member suggested that we had a booklet on the table not to sell, but to explain our ideas of why we chose each subject; we all liked this idea as it brought some background information to the zine and explained what we had created. We therefore each wrote a paragraph explaining our own subject to create the booklet.

I feel that with postcards and our booklet and all our finished zines that we are now ready for the zine fair. We have decided to bring a nice red table cloth for the fair, as we feel the zines will stand out strongly and look good against the bright colour. We've also made little price tags so as everything is ready for the day.

The Final Zine Making Session

So the zines are complete, we had a final session where we finished all the little bits that were to be done. There was a few odds and ends which we had missed so we went through all the zines making sure all of them were the same and nothing had got missed out.

Zine Making

Making the zines has taken a lot of time and we have met up several times as a group to get the process going. We have chosen to make our zines by hand, as it is more personal and each zine will in turn be slightly individual. The problem with making the zines by hand is that the process takes much more time, as each zine has to be worked on in the right order and in the same place, to do this requires a lot of patience. Our idea for the zine being to combine four different subjects into one zine means therefore that each page has at least four different aspects to be added to it, therefore it requires one person to do one aspect and then the zine is passed on to another person to add another aspect to the same page. This process sounds simple, being a work on it and then pass it on method, however different jobs take different amount of times and you soon get a build up of different piles of zines in different stages of production.

Although there has been difficulties making the zines, with members producing work to go in the zines at different times, and with difficulties getting the whole group together, I feel that overall we have done well and achieved a lot taking in the circumstances, although it would be a lie to say the process hasn't been a little bit stressful. However I feel like we have done well in deciding to make an 'original zine'; to set off with we made only one zine, and we finished to a standard where we could use it as a guide for all our other zines, using it to know where things need to go, what pages look the best together, and how many pieces of paper does each zine need and so on. It has been named the original and from that it has become quite sacred to our zine making process.

To create our zine it has required copious amounts of printing, scanning, cutting, photocopying, glueing and writing, and not forgetting the most important...cups of tea...tea means a happy group, which in turn means more work gets done!

Making our zine has been quite expensive, I believe this is because it is hand made; however I think the quality of them being hand made out ways the costs, and is worth it for the zines individuality.

The zines begin to take shape.

Piles of cut out images start to form.

The zines take shape, still blank as of yet, but its a start!

A well needed tea break.

No one said making zines would be tidy!

These photo show the process of making the zines, as you can see we caused plenty of mess! After meeting up several times I feel like we have made a lot of progress and we hope next time we see each other that we can finish them off.

Art Review Writing Workshop

The Art Writing Workshop has to have been my most inspiring time during Unit X, I felt it was relevant to my course and I found the lecture both interesting and inspiring.
We began the workshop by listening to a short lecture about where you can find art reviews and who they are aimed at. We discussed how you find reviews in different places that are aimed for different audiences, for example reviews found in newspapers are most often written in a manner that would appeal to a larger audience, the language normally being quite simple therefore no art knowledge is necessary to understand the  review. Online art magazines, and art magazines specifically designed for people with a keen interest in arts hold more complex reviews, using language that sometimes requires art knowledge to understand the review fully.

We looked at a 'a-n' an online art magazine; 'Interface' a section on the website is a place where people can post opinions and reviews of exhibitions where they are open for discussion. There is also opportunities available where you can receive a bursary to cover costs of getting to a exhibition to then write a review. This is an opportunity I am highly interested in, therefore I am going to keep my eye out to see if anything arises that really grabs my interest.

After reading a selection of reviews and getting to know the different tones in which reviews can be written we were asked how we felt about writing a review ourselves. This seemed a daunting task at first, I felt that I didn't have enough art knowledge to be able to write a review, also lacking the confidence to be able to assert my own opinion on an exhibition. Several other students said they felt the same way; therefore we discussed how we could reign in our own opinion and thoughts, as well as discussing methods on where to begin when review writing.

The Holden Gallery is currently holding the exhibition 'Creation/Destruction'; we therefore used this exhibition as a way of thinking about reviews and about how we would begin a review. I found this really useful being able to see an exhibition straight after talking of methods to reviewing, as I feel when you have a mind set to review and exhibition, you concentrate much more and take much more time simply looking.

Overall I found this a really useful workshop, I found it interesting and fitting to my interests, and I feel like I can take elements from the workshop and use them in either my own work or as a personal interest.

Risograph Workshop

The Risograph printer is most commonly used for duplicating as of its high volume. It was first used for high volume photocopying due its excellent costs. It works by burning a template onto a 'master', this master is then wrapped around a drum where ink is pushed through the master to be printed on the page. A master is capable of up to 500 prints, which allows for cheap printing compared to laser and inkjet printers. Risographs are best for using simple designs and only one or two colours; this is due to being able to use only one colour per master, therefore to add another colour you must add another master which will then print on top of the original page.

We were told that the university charges £1 per master, this was therefore a tempting method of printing; however our zine has many colours throughout its pages therefore we didn't think this would be an appropriate method of printing for ourselves.

This a copy of a print we were given as an example from the Risograph workshop. I like the quality of being able to move the different masters into different positions to create a overlapping and slightly blurred effect. I do really like the effect that the Risograph printer gives, therefore I think it is a shame that it wouldn't work for our zine.

I am glad that we had the opportunity to see how the Risograph printer works even though we won't be using it for our zine. As an art history student it is rare that we have the need or opportunity to use machines, it is therefore interesting and useful to be able to attend this workshop, so we then have the opportunity to use the Risograph in the future.

Manchester Print Fair

Visiting Manchester Print Fair with some friends almost felt like a preview of what our Zine Fair has the potential of becoming, it was a busy and lively event with the hustling and bustling of people. The event was held at 2022NQ, therefore you were able to buy drinks at the venue, creating a more sociable vibe. The print fair itself was held in a quite a small space making everything very compact, however I felt that this allowed people to be able to see alot in a short space of time, although my friends I had to walk around several times to take in all the beautiful prints and objects available.

I feel it is impossible to visit such an event without purchasing one thing...or several; and that is exactly what I did. 

Here is a few images of some prints which I treated myself too, my favorite I think is the greeny colored print, I just love how clear the detail is for a print. I also love the little skeleton lino print at the bottom. 

I did a series of lino prints at college for an art project so I like being able to relate to the same technique.

Overall I really enjoyed the print fair and I will definitely be attending again, its nice to see a group of creative people together both selling and enjoying others work. There were also many zines available at the fair, so we all picked up on a few tips of how they are best displayed. This can all be taken into account when involved in the Zine Fair, using the space of the table, floor and wall. Every little bit of space counts!

Bringing the Zine into Being

After much deliberation on how to begin the zine we decided that action would speak louder than words. We had discussed what we wished to do on many occasions, and it was now time to actually do it.
We decided that as 'homework' we would each produce two pages of the zine with our own ideas and themes, when we were next together we would then work on top of each others pages to create the desired effect.
We met up the next day with our pages that we had done and then began to work upon each others pages.

Above is a selection of images that show the beginning steps of our zine, you can see the development of our ideas developing upon one another. We have selections of images that relate to our own subject area and have then combined others images to complete the page. My favorite page so far has a Timorous Beasties Wallpaper background, and then a graffiti artist upon that, the graffiti artist holds can which appear as though full of writing, this writing has come from my exhibition proposal essay, these elements are from my theme. The artist has then been added a skirt relating to another member of the groups fashion and clothing essay, and then we have a police line tape across the whole man suggesting he is to be arrested, this is to link in with another members death row essay theme. I believe this page to be finished and I am very happy with the outcome. 

I believe that our zine is coming along strongly and that we have made a good start with which we can carry on and continue to improve.

Six Degrees of Seperation

During one of the the progress meetings set out on a weekly basis throughout Unit X, my group and I did a short presentation on the progress of our zine, and our thoughts of production as well as influences that had got us as far as we were.
After talking about the idea of linking together our four ideas from our exhibition proposals, one member from another zine group suggested looking at the concept 'Six Degrees of Seperation'. At the time I had never heard of the concept, therefore I put it upon myself to do some research into the idea.

Image explaining 'Six Degrees of Seperation'

Six Degrees of Seperation was discovered by Hungarian author/poet Frigyes Karinthy, he believed that each person on the planet could be connected to any other person on the planet through no more than six steps, usingthe process of a friend of a friend or acquaintence etc.

Researching into this process I came upon the 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon', this both amused and fascinated me. Kevin Bacon the actor has recently been on the advert for the new mobile network EE, in this advert he is seen connecting celebritys and names and  items and all sorts of differnt people and things to one another; the idea of the advert being to stay connected. However this advert I have discovered has come from the idea of a group of university students who when watching 'Footloose' (Kevin Bacon film) began a game where they had to connect as many celebrities as possible to Kevin Bacon. This game then became a phenomenon, and now google has set up a 'Bacon Number' on its search engine. The Bacon Number is a the number of steps it takes to connect any celebrity to Kevin Bacon. After discovering this I spent a good hour trying to discover someone that could not be connected to Kevin Bacon...I now believe it's impossible.

After getting side tracked for a long amount of time discovering peoples 'Bacon Number' I then came back into how this concept linked in with the making of our zine. The concept strongly links in with our surrealist idea, however contradicts it at the same time. The idea has made me question whether it would be possible to link our four subjects together through a logiccal manner that made perfect sense.

Im glad the idea was brought to our attention in the progress meeting, if not for the benefit of our zine but for my own interest and entertainment. Whilst making our zine I will now see the connections we make between subjects in a new light.

Surrealism and I'ts Connection

Surrealism been beginning in the late 1910's to early 1920's was a movement concerned with first poets and writers, it wasn't until later on that artists became involved. It began as a way to express the subconscious of the mind; automatic writing and poems were created on the spot, a spontaneity within writing. Strong influences were taken from Sigmund Freud aswell as Karl Marx. Surrealism became official in 1924 when the Manifesto of Surrealism was written by poet and critic Andre Breton.
It was because of this spontaneity that held artists apart from the poets; the poets believing that art is a thing produced using time therefore it is impossible to be spontaneous in its creation.
However artists such as Picasso, Duchamp, Miro, Dali and many more joined the movement; and soon their work was seen as strongly surrealist just like the work of Breton and other poets was seen.


Joan Miro



Salvador Dali

Rene Magritte

The Spectral Attitudes

I attach no importance to life
I pin not the least of life's butterflies to importance
I do not matter to life
But the branches of salt the white branches
All the shadow bubbles
And the sea-anemones
Come down and breathe within my thoughts
They come from tears that are not mine
From steps I do not take that are steps twice
And of which the sand remembers the flood-tide
The bars are in the cage
And the birds come down from far above to sing before these bars
A subterranean passage unites all perfumes
A woman pledged herself there one day
This woman became so bright that I could no longer see her
With these eyes which have seen my own self burning
I was then already as old as I am now
And I watched over myself and my thoughts like a night watchman in an immense factory Keeping watch alone
The circus always enchants the same tramlines
The plaster figures have lost nothing of their expression
They who bit the smile's fig
I know of a drapery in a forgotten town
If it pleased me to appear to you wrapped in this drapery
You would think that your end was approaching
Like mine
At last the fountains would understand that you must not say Fountain
The wolves are clothed in mirrors of snow
I have a boat detached from all climates
I am dragged along by an ice-pack with teeth of flame
I cut and cleave the wood of this tree that will always be green
A musician is caught up in the strings of his instrument
The skull and crossbones of the time of any childhood story
Goes on board a ship that is as yet its own ghost only
Perhaps there is a hilt to this sword
But already there is a duel in this hilt
During the duel the combatants are unarmed
Death is the least offence
The future never comes

The curtains that have never been raised
Float to the windows of houses that are to be built
The beds made of lilies
Slide beneath the lamps of dew
There will come an evening
The nuggets of light become still underneath the blue moss
The hands that tie and untie the knots of love and of air
Keep all their transparency for those who have eyes to see
They see the palms of hands
The crowns in eyes
But the brazier of crown and palms
Can scarcely be lit in the deepest part of the forest
There where the stags bend their heads to examine the years
Nothing more than a feeble beating is heard
From which sound a thousand louder or softer sounds proceed
And the beating goes on and on
There are dresses that vibrate
And their vibration is in unison with the beating
When I wish to see the faces of those that wear them
A great fog rises from the ground
At the bottom of the steeples behind the most elegant reservoirs of life and of wealth
In the gorges which hide themselves between two mountains
On the sea at the hour when the sun cools down
Those who make signs to me are separated by stars
And yet the carriage overturned at full speed
Carries as far as my last hesitation
That awaits me down there in the town where the statues of bronze
and of stone have changed places with statues of wax Banyans banyans.

Andre Breton

What I want to grasp from the movement of Surrealism is the spontaneity, and the prospect of not having to connect everything together. In our zine we wish to combine four completely unrelated subjects together; we want to combine them in a manner that is either completely nonsensical, for example in our zine you may see a marble statue with a smurfettes head, or a tattooed film character wearing a skirt made from wallpaper. No connection or understanding is required whilst looking upon our zine, it asks for no interpretation. The influence of Surrealism is clear as you look through the zine, however we have discussed this matter taking into account not only our own zine, but zines that you find all the time.
A recurring theme within zines appears to be the surrealist idea of putting many different things together to create something that doesn't make sense, yet at the same time does. I believe because of this recurring theme, that zines have to be approached with an open mind.