The Use of Thread and Fabric in Feminist Zines

  • “feminist zines rising to prominence in the early 1990s alongside the punk subculture known as “riot grrrl”” ⤴️

  • “an avenue for young women to write about their lived experiences of sexism or discrimination and to connect with other women who had shared experiences” ⤴️

  • “consciousness-raising groups of previous feminist activist movements” ⤴️

  • “blending the personal with the political” ⤴️

  • “signifying historically traditional feminist craft practices such as quilting and scrapbooking” ⤴️

  • “unique modes of creative self-expression offered by the zine medium, rather than the actual content, that offer opportunities for political expression” ⤴️

  • “small-circulation” ⤴️

  • tumblr cultures of few-note posts, connecting small groups with shared experience

  • “subcultural or alternative publishing (Duncombe; Atton)” ⤴️

  • “sites of resistance to mainstream representation (Schilt; Harris)” ⤴️

  • “the materiality of the zine also provides opportunity for informing and enhancing reading practices beyond the formal structures of traditionally printed materials.” ⤴️

  • “the use of handcrafted elements adds layers of signification to the object, particularly concerning communal belonging through shared textual and visual narratives” ⤴️

  • “the use of unique handcrafted elements such as thread and fabric in zine construction signifies a shared legacy with feminist craft practices as a means of self-expression and communication.” ⤴️

  • “thread acts as a binding mechanism” ⤴️

  • “an invitation to read the enclosed contents and suggests a kind of intimacy between reader and creator” ⤴️

  • “examine how these handcrafted elements can translate to digital and online zines” ⤴️

  • “digital zines continue to utilise both real and perceived handcrafted elements” ⤴️

  • “Rather than viewing the digital zine as a reproduction of the physical, digital zines instead open space for new iterations and interpretations through existing in a new cultural context and offers an opportunity to continue to sustain these practices.” ⤴️

  • i disagree, i think often the tangibility is lost, but with newer technologies we can actually bring the benefits of tech’s connectivity to handcrafted forms without losing the affective elements or losing the meaning of the medium through mass-producing via digital means

  • “Zines scholars Alison Piepmeier and Anna Poletti have both connected contemporary zinemaking to a legacy of feminism activism by drawing comparison to traditionally feminine craft practices such as scrapbooking and quilting” ⤴️

  • “Poletti and Piepmeier establish similarities from the intentional construction of the object for individual women to communicate and connect with a broader community of women,” ⤴️

  • “Quiltmaking, scrapbooking and zinemaking are “conscious labouring choices” that privilege personal production as a means of communication and social connection (Poletti 55).” ⤴️

  • “The finished object tells the story of its labour, shown through seams, joins, stitches, and folds.” ⤴️

  • “Poletti explains, “the physical trace of the quilter is read by following generations, involving imaginative work which takes the object as a point of departure for constructing a sense of connection with one’s ancestry” (56).” ⤴️

  • “Quilts and scrapbooks are objects that are designed to be shared socially, but also passed on as an heirloom through generations, while zine distribution mimics this tradition through its unique gifting and trading culture (Poletti 56).” ⤴️

  • ““the physical properties of stuff shape the ways social connections happen”, reinforcing the significance of the materiality of the object in connecting a shared legacy (264).” ⤴️

  • “provided women with a means of participating in cultural production,” ⤴️

  • “the inner contents of the folded page cannot be accessed while the thread is wrapped around the zine” ⤴️

  • “These structural elements evoke a sense of the zine acting as a private invitation to the reader.” ⤴️

  • “The act of unravelling the thread enclosure provides an interaction that is often not present in other text-objects.” ⤴️

  • “These design choices can be read as evoking a feeling of a scrapbook, a traditional item on the surface but its inner contents reveal a personal interpretation of the creator’s experiences.” ⤴️

  • “wrapping or encasing a zine is a transformative action in which the reader must first negotiate the zine as an object before it becomes a text (247-248).” ⤴️

  • “draw attention to the fact that each copy of the zine has been constructed by hand, thus humanising the creator of the object” ⤴️

  • “the thread here makes the hand of the maker visible on the object. Through interacting with the thread that has been sewn and wound, the reader is “registering the time expanded on each individual copy and positioning the contents as something gifted, prepared, contemplated, and special” (Poletti 247). This interaction promotes an embodied connection between creator and reader, thus promoting a feeling of intimacy.” ⤴️

  • “the photocopy includes the ring-binding of a notebook” ⤴️

  • “photocopied fabric pieces” ⤴️

  • “The inclusion of the ring-binding and the fabric further draws attention to the zine as a handcrafted item, signifying to the reader that despite being photocopies, these internal pages are the result of a conscious labouring practice.” ⤴️

  • “The yellow felt shows signs of being cut by hand, with the sides cut on a slight angle and not sitting flush with the printer paper. The zine is also clearly folded and stapled by hand as the staples are off-centre, causing the pages to sit askew. Piepmeier refers to features such as these as “a scrappy messiness”, which is “an aesthetic that serves to humanize the creator and the zine” and enhances the sense of personal connection when engaging with the object (67). It reminds the reader “consciously or unconsciously, that there is a maker, a creator, behind this text” (Sinor 243). The reader understands that each page here has passed through the hand of the maker and was constructed with intention and care, situating the object as a labour of love.” ⤴️

  • “While books can contain the content of life writing, their formal structures remind “readers that they aren’t actually privy to someone’s confidential information” (Piepmeier 73).” ⤴️

  • “The handcrafted elements of the zine signify “fewer layers of separation between the reader and the creator”, and encourage the reader to approach the zine as a personal object, rather than a mass-produced object (Piepmeier 73).” ⤴️

  • “The fabric zine cover is thus a performative gesture of self-making and a statement of communal belonging.” ⤴️

  • “the performance of making the zine enacts a performance of identity, one that can be read to reflect a historical lineage of feminist craft practices” ⤴️

  • “Technological advancements have historically played a significant role in feminist craft practices and have lowered the barriers to cultural production (Ramdarshan Bold 217).” ⤴️

  • “digital scrapbooking spaces have opened up opportunities for self-expression and sharing “without requiring outlays of money and space during production” (Christensen 268). While many anticipated the decline of zines with the rise of the Internet, zines have continued to flourish in both physical and online spaces (Duncombe 217).” ⤴️

  • “in terms of digital communities, that is the connecting and networking between members of the zine community that can occur in online spaces. The digital medium makes it easier for the reader to connect with the creator and for creators to connect more broadly with a like-minded network thanks to email and social media (Ramdarshan Bold 220).” ⤴️

  • “a more immediate and tangible sense of community is available to those making and reading zines, compared to the informal and distant networks of physical zines that primarily operate through the postal system (Ferris).” ⤴️

  • “zines can be translated into a digital form known as e-zines, made through desktop publishing applications or simply as digitised copies of physical zines.” ⤴️

  • “Digital zines are arguably more accessible as they are more affordable to produce and distribute than their physical counterparts and therefore more affordable for readers to purchase (Ferris). E-zines hold the potential to reach wider networks and new audiences” ⤴️

  • “the zine form itself is inherently reproducible” ⤴️

  • “It is rare that a physical zine is entirely original and homemade, with most zines undergoing processes of scanning and photocopying. I have argued here that the handmade qualities of zines can provide additional context in which to read that object, but I also argue that a digital reproduction of a zine opens space for new iterations and interpretations through existing in a new context (Burns 5).” ⤴️

  • “Burns argues that “the embodiment of the physical object is carried into the digital file”, and this is evident in the example of She’s the Girl U Want (7-8). The inclusion of scanned fabric pieces still reads as fabric even after the process of reproduction, continuing to call attention to the zine as a handmade object.” ⤴️

  • sure the performativity of the fabric carries through but not the embodied experience of closeness

  • “While the reader does not open the page in the same way they would a physical zine, the ascribed meaning here positions the reader to understand the intention and approach the object as handcrafted.” ⤴️

  • “the cut and paste style calls to mind scrap pieces of fabric” ⤴️

  • “It is through the aesthetic and ideological performances of previous feminist craft practices that emerging practices continue to draw on this lineage, regardless of their materiality (Piepmeier 42).” ⤴️

  • “Christensen suggests that the existence of the material object itself “suggests a desire to leave a durable legacy” (240). Zines, much like scrapbooks or quilts, may not be created with the explicit intention of becoming a historical record, but implicitly do so” ⤴️

  • “Contemporary zine creators align themselves with a feminist legacy through ideological or aesthetic similarities,” ⤴️

  • “Zines continue to participate as a record of communication in both physical and digital forms” ⤴️

  • “Christensen, Danille Elise. “Materializing the Everyday: ‘Safe’ Scrapbooks, Aesthetic Mess, and the Rhetorics of Workmanship.” Journal of Folklore Research 54.3 (2017): 233-284.” ⤴️