workshop: zines at Signal – the aftermath

Did that zine workshop at Signal last night. Seven keen beans showed up and listened patiently to my ziney opinions, then played along with my zinemaking games.

We wrote rants and stream of consciousness diatribes. We reviewed zines from the pile I’d brought from my personal stash. We copied out recently-played lists from our iPods and funny texts from our phones. We cut up books about sharks and old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, back-issues of Dolly, Cleo, The Monthly and New Scientist and stuck things down to make pretty new juxtapositions.

In the process we were treated to essays on why chickens are ace, why wearing an apple sticker on your face is no big thing, and the irony of save-the-planet advocates of energy efficient lightbulbs celebrating Christmas with strings of teeny-tiny lights. We were also treated to jellybeans! And car-shaped gummies! And chocolate cake brought by one particular workshop attendee (nobody’s ever brought cake to a workshop before – a dangerous precedent has now been set…).

Apparently this was one of the very first workshops to ever be held at the amazing new Signal artspace, which I’m guessing from its height and proximity to Flinders Street Station and its name used to be some kind of signalling station or something? Amazing 360-degree third-storey views of the station, the river and the Southbank precinct. Amazing light. You could tell it was a brand new contemporary artspace from the way that the cupboards in the kitchen/workshop area were completely bare apart from a mismatched set of six tumblers, three high-tech AV remote controls and a secret stash of wine.

At the end of the two-hour session all seven of the fearless participants had survived my haphazard zineinfodumps and were all the proud owners of their very own at-least-five-eighths-finished zines. Thanks to the folk at Express Media for organising the event, and congrats and thanks to all who came along. May your zinemaking careers be long, industrious and prolific.