This panel brings together library workers who create, collect, and circulate zines as tools of resistance. How can zine collections subvert institutional norms? What does it mean to center the undercommons in academic settings (is it even possible)? What tensions arise when radical materials enter the stacks? We'll explore zine libraries as political acts, and what they teach us about access, labor, and memory.
GALLERY 3
Mike Olson, (he/him) is an academic librarian who makes counterculture art and information activism zines as SCIENCEPAINTED (@sciencepainted), including turning his published scholarship on critical visual literacies in social movements created from interviews with artist-activists discussing their visual resistance practices into zines he tables at fests to collect more material for the Zine Reading Room in Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
April Sheridan is the Special Collections Librarian for the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she curates the collection and provides instruction. She is a letterpress printer and book producer who is particularly interested in the artistic and experimental possibilities of small press production and its historic place in American culture.
Cynthia Hanifin (she/her) is a zinemaker, writer, arts organizer, and social worker from the Southwest Side of Chicago. Her zines and community work explore the power of our personal stories to forge connections with others and inspire transformations of the heart and the world around us, often through the lens of her life as a queer, working-class Chicagoan. Cynthia is the producer of Zine Club Chicago and founder of the South Side Zine Library, a free community resource located inside the Bridgeport branch of the Chicago Public Library. Find out more online at zineclubchicago.com and on Instagram: @zineclubchicago
Savannah Carr (they/she) is a librarian, artist, and activist in Madison WI. She manages the collections at the UW Madison Information Science School Laboratory Library, including the Library Workers Zine Collection. When the library was moving into its new home in Morgridge Hall this summer, they had to reorganize the zine collection and develop a new storage system. In their personal life, Savannah organizes a local art show, participates in mutual aid projects, and does pottery.
Oscar Arriola (he/him) is a co-director of ZINEmercado and the organizer for FOTOmercado, an annual all-photography book, zine and print fest. He is a photographer, curator, zine collector, and a staff member of the Chicago Public Library. Oscar has curated recent photography shows featuring work by Diana Solís for the Poetry Foundation, and Akito Tsuda for the Special Collections Division of the Chicago Public Library. He has exhibited his photo and installation work at the Chicago Cultural Center, Roman Susan, Elephant Room Gallery, and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.