Schedule update, August 2009:
Due to the amazing responses I have received from people and organizations across Canada, and coupled with a few unforeseen schedule conflicts, SPEW Fo(u)rth: A Canadian Queer Zine Art Show will actually tour in 2010 with exact dates to be determined later. I will still be constructing pieces for the Show during my residency at Anchor Zine Library and Archive, but there will be no public display and tour immediately after the residency as has been previously planned.
Please contact me for anything related to either my residency or the tour itinerary for 2010. Cities and organizations that have offered to host events include:
Edmonton - Edmonton Small Press Association
Toronto - Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives
Ottawa - the Agitate! Collective
Montreal (possibly Ste. Emilie Skillshare)
Thank you all for your interest and passion, looking forward to meeting folks in Halifax in September 2009, and on the actual tour in 2010!
Original announcement:
Based on the wildly popular Queer Zine Art Show produced in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the summer of 2007, Christopher Wilde, co-founder of The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP), in conjunction with The Anchor Zine Library and Archive in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is curating a Canadian Queer Zine Art Show. This event will bring to life, in street style art formats such as wheat pasted posters and stencils, graphics and text from some of the influential queer zines to originate from an epicenter of queer zine culture over the past 25 years.
To insure representation of radical and marginalized queer feminists, people of colour and indigenous cultures, queers with disabilities, transgendered and multi-gendered folks, who are from working class, rural and urban settings, and those of all shapes and sizes, I'm inviting your suggestions and submissions to this unique project to appear along side pre-selected pieces. Work must have appeared in a Canadian produced queer zine and must be easy to scale into a large format suitable for gallery style display. The purpose of the Art Show is educational and artistic and exhibitions will be free to the public and adheres to the share-and-share alike, non-copyright philosophy present in most zine communities.
One set of display pieces will be created during a two week residency September 6 - 20, 2009 at the Anchor Zine Library and Archive in Halifax. I look forward to hearing from zine creators and zine fans about what images and words will be lovingly lifted from the sticky pages of Canadian queer zines will represent a quarter of a century of radical thought and punk rock love.
(Click "Read more" link below to continue)
What is A Queer Zine Art Show?
- By pulling together graphics and the written word from different zines across a 25 year history, and enlarging them to wall display size, I want to provide viewers with an overview of the activism and radical thought that has appeared in Canadian queer zines. A similar event in the summer of 2007 in Milwaukee, WI, brought together approximately 30 different examples of a wide range of radical queer experiences. It also helped to reach those who had never seen or read a queer zine before to understand just what the phenomenon was all about. For a look at that show, visit QZAP's Flickr page: http://tinyurl.com/qzas2007
Why SPEW Fo(u)rth?
- SPEW (http://zinewiki.com/Spew) was the name given to three previous queer zine convergences. The first event was held in Chicago in 1991, the second in Los Angeles in 1992, and the third in Toronto in 1993. Reviving the SPEW name, and playfully tagging a fourth iteration with the projectile imagery ("spew forth"), this event will be a centre point around which other queer zine related events can spring up autonomously.
Why Halifax?
- Initially, the idea for an Art Show started as a proposal to the Artists Residency program at the Anchor Zine Library and Archive. Residents stay in "the shed" located behind the building which houses the Zine Library and is a focal point for community activities under the name The Roberts Street Social Centre.
How will these pieces be created?
- During the residency at Anchor, scheduled from September 6 - 20, 2009, I'll be working daily to create one set of pieces for the show. This process will be open, and using the facilities available at Anchor, such as the Ink Storm Screenprint Collective studio, will allow for community members to be part of the creative process through mini-events such as skill share workshops and group discussions. I will also seek, with the help of Halifax community members, to adapt material from the show through inventive reuse. This might entail dumpster diving/curb surfing, seeking out abandoned scrap material such as old wood, windows and bricks, and acquiring art supplies through trade and donation. Anyone is welcome to help facilitate these mini-events, all will be free and open to the public. I'll also plan a few fun events, such as a movie night, to explore the connections that queer zines have with the broader radical queer community. For a look at how QZAP's 2007 Queer Zine Art Show was created, please check out the documentation photos of work-in-progress at http://tinyurl.com/qzas2007WIP
How will work be chosen?
I am currently working with past and present Canadian queer zinesters, various zine archives and libraries, and community members to select suitable material. I will be visiting CLGA at the end of August on my way out by car to Halifax, stopping in Montreal, and then arriving in Halifax (if you're on this route, and can provide a night or two of billeting, please let me know!). Along the way, I would love to meet queer zinesters and fans to hear their suggestions. During the summer leading up to my trip, suggestions and submissions can be sent to me via my QZAP e-mail address.
Why is someone from the States constructing a project involving Canadian queer zines?
- Good question! My connection to the Canadian queer zine scene began shortly after I started producing my own queer zine, Abrupt Lane Edge (ALE), in 1992. I attended SPEW 3 and ALE was distributed in Canada throughout its four year run. I met many awesome and amazing queer zinesters and had a large number of Canadian fans. Currently, I am the co-founder of The Queer Zine Archive Project and as such, am responsible along with the collective effort of other queer zinesters and fans, of preserving and interpreting the history of queer zines from all around the world and in many languages. I also have Canadian heritage. Several of my ancestors were born in anglophone parts of Quebec in the early 19th Century and relocated to the States prior to Confederation. I've also often been mistaken for being Canadian! Creating this Art Show is my way of showing my love and respect for the history of Canadian queer zines and the people that produced them. Their creations influenced others world wide to write and edit their own queer zines.
If you want to participate in these events, have suggestions, can provide billeting or would like more information, please e-mail me directly: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
