The Learning Zone

Last week (Thursday, March 12) was the 7th annual OCADU Zine Fair. A mixture of students and Toronto-based zine makers gathered to share their work with the OCADU community.

For the uninitiated, zines are self published creations that take many different forms: small magazines, art books, comics, journals, how-to guides… the list continues to infinity. The Learning Zone houses a zine collection and is the meeting place for OCADU’s Zine Collective. The annual zine fair is but one of the Learning Zone’s zine initiatives, and it is the best opportunity to meet other creators face-to-face.

Meet some of the vendors at this year’s zine fair:

Jay Chau is a photography student at OCADU.

Jay (who was sharing a table with fellow student Grace Brooks) was displaying work such as these embroidered genitalia journals, and some prints. Grace was showing t-shirts (featuring Billy Balogna from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse!) and sculptures of two-headed animals.

 

Worn and The Wheelhouse were neighbours this year. The aim of The Wheelhouse (left) is to bring together a community of people who are facing barriers to accessibility. Through intersectional activities — including a zine distro — The Wheelhouse provides resources, learning opportunities and safe spaces for marginalized people.

Before it closed up shop at the end of 2014, Worn was a progressive fashion journal that looked deeper into fashion, covering questions like what is behind our relationship with accessories, what is the relationship between religious identity and underwear and what connections are there between clothing and activism. Though there will be no more new issues of Worn, back issues from its 10 years of feminist fashion insight are still available online.

Whitney French is a Toronto-based zine maker and one of the editors behind the zine series From The Root. The series documents stories, images and testimonies from women of colour in Canada. The first issue’s focus was hair, and the newest issue — which had its Toronto debut at the zine fair — focuses on stories and experiences around the theme of the body. The body issue has its official launch March 22 at Beit Zatoun on Markham Street (4-6pm).

Kimberley Dewing was representing the work of a group of 4th year illustration students. Much of the work was themed around goblins. They have plans for a next venture which will focus on witches.

OCADU alumna Emily Waknine was here representing the artist collective Carrier. To raise funds for future exhibitions, Carrier was selling work such as collage zines, prints, jewellery and cassette tapes.

If you missed the zine fair, you may yet have a chance to see the work of these artists. Many of these zines will be added to the OCAD Zine Library so stop by the Learning Zone to check out our collection. And follow the links above to find some of these zines for sale online.