Whilst digital burnout isn’t a novel sentiment, it seems to be at a tipping point. As a result, the consumption of physical media has never been more coveted: opening a book up to that all-too-familiar musty perfume, flicking over a chalky page with your fingertips, and folding down the edge as a place marker for your next perusal.
We are not only reviving the consumption of physical media, but also its production. A form that has remained steadfast, yet is particularly having a moment now, is the intimate artefact of the zine. We are enamoured by all things DIY currently, in the hope of grounding ourselves in the analog – and zines are a tangible testament to that.
Sitting somewhere between a coffee table book and a glossy mag, zines have been championing youth culture on paper for decades now, stemming from punk scenes in the ‘70s, to feminist and queer movements in the ‘80s, to their mark on the riot grrrls of the ‘90s.
Zines have always been a dogma for the anarchist youth by documenting undercurrents of subcultures, providing space for preserving these subcultures on paper, and serving as a counter-current to digital consumption. Offering up a space to simultaneously disconnect and connect, the ethos of zines serves as a touchstone for youth and is rooted in community.
Odessa Mykytowycz, owner of Melbourne-based book purveyor, Fiend, stresses the importance of preserving print and tangible forms of media. “There’s so much constantly pulling us back into our devices, and it’s exhausting; it breaks your presence in the world. I think it’s the tactility that makes print different. You hold it with your hands, you can make it with your hands, and it has the same kind of visual level as the rest of the world. Screens tire your eyes, but I always find reading print media leaves mine feeling rejuvenated.”
Ranging between skateboarding scenes and streetwear, to queer nightlife and underground music circles, zines function as archives of lived experience exploring identity, sexuality, politics and rebellion. The power in zines is that they offer creative freedom due to their self-published nature, which allows for an outlet that doesn’t demand perfection.
“Zines are such an accessible way of disseminating and consuming ideas that are cheap to make and cheap to consume. At the end of the day, they’re just another print media format, and as with other print media like books, while there can be a lot of white noise in how prolifically new publications come out, there’ll always be something that can cut through that noise and gain traction. Ultimately, I guess the ideal is that a strong underground resistance will eventually rise to the topsoil and influence mainstream culture,” Odessa tells RUSSH.
As they are published independently, zines offer emerging creatives a way to bypass editorial gatekeeping, and amplify their own voices. Zines encapsulate culture that is unfolding at a grassroots level and immortalise it on paper. “When I was reading books, it felt more timeless and transportive, whereas the content in these magazines felt so current, kind of like the books deepened me, but the magazines broadened things for me,” Odessa says.
Reflecting on the early origins of Fiend, Odessa says it “very much began on a whim in lockdown. I’d made a publication of my own and was seeing lots of cool publications, and zines pop up locally and internationally, many of which I wanted to buy but couldn’t justify the heavy overseas shipping for. I thought it would be cool if there was a place in Melbourne or at least Australia where many of these could be bought from, and figured on a whim, why don’t I just create that space? Over the last few years, Fiend really has grown quite organically as a brand, and as time passes, Fiend’s identity becomes stronger.”
For Magnolia Sparke, a Sydney-based photographer and book curator at Ant Books, the revival of print celebrates slowing down. “The craftsmanship and skill that it takes to create something tactile and with your hands is essential to who we are and what we do as humans… the smell of a book, the touch of a book, opening a book. It’s how photos should be seen – in print, on paper,” she said.
Magnolia believes that zines foster micro-communities and are important for keeping the future of underground culture, underground. “Most new trends that pop up in the mainstream started underground,” she tells RUSSH. “If you kind of operate in those areas, you can see that the pipeline kind of happens directly. But I think authenticity, you will still only find underground. And if you know, you can really sniff it out – whether it’s like a carbon copy or an authentic vision of an artist,” she said.
While mainstream magazines are sometimes hesitant to platform alternate perspectives, creators have complete freedom with zines – making them a safe space for marginalised voices to tell their own story. “There is no pressure, and I think it’s a way of connecting with people,” Magnolia said. “I think even if it’s just exploring that side of you where you’re in a mode where you’re creating, and you’re having to think of an idea, and it doesn’t even matter what you get,” Magnolia stated.
Zines have become objects of slow media that hold cultural value and reject the fleeting nature of the algorithm. “Picking up a book and looking at it and not being on this tiny little screen, it really brings you into the present in a way that feels like you’re living,” Magnolia told RUSSH.
At Ant Books, Magnolia works closely with local publishers and has developed close ties with her local printer over the years. When she was uncertain about the execution of her zine, her printer, Vasili at Uneven Press, said to her, “Magnolia, it’s a zine, it can be whatever you make it… It’s like the perfect playground.”
Working with rare books, small-press and archival magazines, Magnolia says, “The most expensive and hard to find is small print media that’s gained a cult following since it’s been published… You look back on it now, and it’s just like this amazing time stamp and relic of that time.”
The cultural landscape of the revival of zines is quite telling of our desire to slow down, and echoes the democratisation of media.
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