By: Jennifer Perkin –
CONS Project Zine Making & Printing Workshop in Toronto. (Photo: James Morley)
The Cons Project – a global series of free skate, art, and music seminars run by Converse – gathered a group of young people in their teens and twenties in a Toronto west-end warehouse on Feb. 14 to focus on the art of making zines. While the process involves some technology including printers, laptops and photocopiers, for the most part we are using old-fashioned scissors and glue and we are loving it.
Brian Paul Lamotte of Pau Wau publications, an independent zine and book publisher operating out of Greenpoint, Brooklyn leads the workshop. Together with his partner Andreas Laszlo Konrath, they produce handmade publications that sell at exclusive bookstores around the world. Paul brought along copies of some of their works for perusal and inspiration.
Paul commences the workshop speaking to the nature of the ‘zine’ subculture and about the long running connection between skate boarding and zines. In fact, the workshop is very much about skating – half of the warehouse building contains ramps and many participants have brought their boards. The roll and clatter of skates is part of the background noise all day.
The goal of the session is for each participant to contribute one page to a collective zine and Brian demonstrates the accessibility of the process, essentially de-mythologizing the process of zine making. “There is a long history of collaboration in the zine world. It is one of the least competitive industries you could imagine because no one is making any money from it.”
Freed from financial constraints, there is a huge degree of creative freedom, and Brian encourages us to put whatever is in our heads onto paper.
We dive in, breaking off to tables with printers and laptops on them. The group at my table decide to go analog, using old newspapers, magazines and books with scissors and glue to create a collage. Others go for a more computer-based approach, printing their photographs from online or digitally altering pictures.
Trent Matley at the CONS Project Zine Making & Printing Workshop in Toronto. (Photo: James Morley)
Sitting next to me is Nikolai McLeod, a 27-year-old Toronto native who has brought along some of his own hand-drawn comics for the workshops. He says, “I’m really into making drawings and comics, so I never really thought about the literary aspect of zines. Now that I’m seeing how easy it is to do, I definitely plan to make one in the next couple of weeks.”
Brian and other coordinators offer help and advice as we work, breaking only for (surprisingly generous and delicious) lunch and intermittent Converse sneaker giveaways.
Many are more interested in the skating, no doubt partly due to the presence of pro-skater and CONS Skate Ambassador Eli Reed. While not a zine maker himself, he tells me that zines and skating “go hand in hand”. He continues, “Documenting ourselves has always been a part of the process, for years now people have taken pictures and making skate videos. Zines are another extension of that”.
As everyone finishes up making photocopies of their final pages, Brian briefly workshops participants on InDesign software to compile a pamphlet featuring polaroids of the participants, and demonstrates how to properly print and fold them. He also introduces us to the Riso printer, a machine that uses similar methods to screenprinting and sits somewhere between a photocopier and a commercial printer. He makes souvenir posters for participants to takeaway.
When it’s time to collate our zines, the pages are laid on a table for collection and binding – we are given the option of a heavy-duty stapler or a ring-binding machine. The results are surprisingly professional.
Seeing the awesome range of style and content that participants produced today in a mere few hours is inspiring. Zines are truly limited only to the imagination of the contributors, and Converse has planted the seeds.
Zines, as Brian said, “were the internet before the internet.”
Zine Making & Printing is the fourth of five in the ongoing workshop series slated to hit the city. The fifth is in April 2015.
Interested, eligible participants can find out more information about the Converse CONS Project here.
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DIY and the mention of Corporate companies like Con (exactly) cannot be mentioned together. It’s a contradiction in terms. They companies are trying to manipulate people with strong ethics and ideas into believing that companies like theirs (owned by Nike) care. They only care how they are perceived by the general consumer so they can tap into markets and sub cultures they haven’t before. The bottom line. Please the share holders. It’s all just a hoax people and yer buying it.
Posted by kaspertobiasphotography | February 20, 2015, 10:59 amI don’t think that there can be any denying that corporations operate only in their own interests and of course they don’t ‘care’. I think it’s possible however to take part in something like this without being ‘manipulated’. Many of the people who participated in these and other workshops sponsored by corporations may take something away that they haven’t learned otherwise – I know I did. That doesn’t mean I ‘bought’ anything in regards to Converse. It’s a fact of life that more and more of the arts and culture is sponsored by corporations because that’s where the money is – I’ve seen countless amazing gigs in recent years that have had corporate sponsors, and though I personally don’t love it I can’t say I felt manipulated. Look at how much sponsorships there is in skating. I am able to critically analyze and decide where I spend my consumer dollar, as are many others.
Anyway, I appreciate your comment as it’s an important discussion to have and this session made me think a lot about it.
Posted by Jennifer Perkin | February 24, 2015, 5:20 pmThank you for not taking it personal and being open for discussion about it. Most skaters who you try to discuss this about often back up companies like Nike “SB” without hesitation. And there is no love for skater owned or small companies who have stood by skating in the good times and bad. These companies will abandon skateboarding if it doesn’t make them money. That’s the difference and it is very disconcerting to me that skaters do not see this truth. Anyway thank you for your response and taking the time to write.
Posted by kaspertobiasphotography | February 24, 2015, 5:25 pm