1 From left: Margarat Nee, Kim Riot, Ari Perezdiez, and Emily.
Reader of the Week: Kim Riot and Margarat Nee of San Diego
Grrrl Zines A-Go-Go head mistresses
By Jihanah Rasul
Published: April 8th, 2008 | 9:55am
When and how did you start Grrrl Zines A-Go-Go?
We started in 2002 after we did a workshop for an arts event presented by the S/he Collective in San Diego. We had such a good time that we decided to continue with the idea and form a group to do so, and GZAGG was born. One of the original members was Elke Zobl from Austria, who does Grrrl Zine Network. She was living in San Diego for a few years, working on her PhD about zines and was instrumental in bringing together and re-energizing the local women zinesters who, with her, became GZAGG. Since then, we have continued doing workshops and have also organized zine exhibits and events.
Where are these workshops and who runs them?
GZAGG workshops are directly organized by members of our collective and the occasional "support staff" friend. Most of our workshops are in the San Diego area, because that's where we live, but we occasionally do them elsewhere if we're lucky enough to travel. We've done zine workshops in libraries, classrooms, and community spaces of all sorts, even parks. The participant age ranges from 6 to 60. We've written a couple of zines on how to do workshops because we don't want to be the only ones out there doing this sort of culture work. We strongly encourage others to copy what we're doing in their own town. Our "Let's D.I.Y.!" zines give you the basics on how to do a workshop (in issue #1), and how to partner with organizations in your community (issue #2). We're planning a third issue that's specifically about working with youth. We also have some "how to" information on our Web site, gzagg.org.
What could we expect if we participated in one of your workshops?
Lots of action and using your brain! Most of our workshops involve creating a collaborative zine, in which each participant creates one page of the zine. The result is a snapshot of that group of people on that day, and everyone goes home with a copy of the zine to read and share. If we are doing a
workshop at an event that has a theme we'll encourage people to create a page that reflects the theme of the event, but we never tell someone that what they've done isn't good enough, or isn't appropriate. The goal is that rush of creativity focused with words and images. We provide bins of clip-art along with scissors and glue sticks, so people can make collages. We also provide typewriters. Some of the pages are full of words, and others full of images, and it's wonderful seeing the wide array of personalities and ideas that come through when reading the finished product.
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Issue #27
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