The craft of DIY book and zine making is one that encourages self expression and passionate ideas.
The Phoenix Zine Fair 2015 plans to showcase that originality by offering artists a space to bring their zines to table, share, trade or sell, and even the opportunity to read one’s own work to an audience on Friday, April 3, from 5 to 9 p.m.
This is the fair’s largest event since its formation in 2010 and the first time it’s been hosted at the Trunk Space music venue near Grand Avenue and Roosevelt Street.
“We have never done something of this size,” said Samantha Rodriguez, one of the three hosts and curators for the event, in an email interview.
However, even though the Phoenix Zine Fair has grown, Rodriguez said the event is still more intimate and small than other fairs such as the Tempe Zine Fair, which was also started in 2010.
Rodriguez said they picked the Trunk Space as the venue because of the size and the gallery-like aspect of the space.
Rachel Heath, another host of the event, said in an email interview that the idea for the event to be a pop-up-shop came from the realization that “we could turn our usual small-scale night of tabling into a monthlong exhibition in order to share local zine makers’ work with the community.”
“We are going to juror zines at the fair on April 3 and select about 10 to display at the Trunk Space for the whole month as a collective gallery show,” Heath said.
The fair will also have vegan pastries for sale, as well as DJ Adam LoveLady spinning vinyl.
“I think it’s going to be a fun night,” Heath said.
Rodriguez said she hoped the event would encourage people to create, while Heath said that she anticipated the event would “foster artistic networking and commutative appreciation for local publishers.”
One participating zine creator, Alex Rempel, is drawn to zines because they are “independently released, against-the-grain, remarkably unique content, free of any restrictions or regulations.”
He also admires how zines function as “a platform for anyone to freely express themselves in whatever manner they choose, and explore the ideas of others who share the same disposition.”
Rempel will be producing his first zine for the Phoenix Zine Fair. He hopes to engage and challenge his audience through unconventional methods, and teach people how to carefully re-examine the environment they inhabit.
Another zine contributor is Zachariah Webb, who is also the editor-in-chief of ASU literature journal “The Tempe Normal School Review.”
Webb said he wanted to create a platform more open to experimentation and confrontation with every dark corner of modern life through his zine.
Keeping the multiple contributors for his zine organized was “awfully difficult” sometimes, Webb said.
“We’ve learned to be flexible with deadlines,” he added.
While zines as we know them today rose to prominence in the second half of the 20th century through punk and riot grrl circles, Rodriguez said zine fairs and the art of self-publishing has existed in counterculture communities for hundreds of years.
“I personally feel like it is important to not think of this as something new and original, but as an observation of tradition among people who run in a different way than society allows,” she said.
Contact the reporter at syong2@asu.edu
