Media for niche groups

Small and self-produced, zines have taken the world by storm. An ongoing exhibition is a window on a library of them that has been created in Cyprus. ELENI PHILIPPOU finds out more

 There are many types of media these days, besides the one you are reading right now, in addition to the growing number of products for niche markets. And nestles among the newspapers and magazines of the world is the humble zine. A small, self-published booklet for creatives to unleash their thoughts and work without censorship or advertising.

A zine (pronounced ‘zeen’), is generally produced via a copy machine. Historically, zines acted as a powerful outlet for creativity that was considered either too niche, too risky or just ‘too much’ for traditional publications. Zines have covered topics from politics, sexuality, art, humour and beyond. The term zine is thought to date back to the 1940s that grew popular in science fiction fandom until nine years later it officially entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

There are dozens of article online detailing how to make a zine but for the next few days, you don’t need Google. Instead, head into old Nicosia to visit Cyprus’ first zine library, AZINES, which also has an exhibition going on until Thursday.

Wanting to bring creators together and build a community for them to share their creativity, the AZINES team launched the library. “Zine culture is about exchanging ideas, methodologies, visions, personal experiences and more, so we wanted to create a space-archive for these elements to grow,” says the five-member team. Research and project curators Maria Leonidou, AnnaMaria Charalambous and Maria Efstathiou are joined by graphic designer Andreas Pitsillides and Alexandra Pambouka.

Their library, housed at Garage multispace on Famagusta Street, is now the new home of around 150 zines collected through research, personal contacts and an open call. All types of zine are featured, “anything and everything by anyone and everyone,” as AZINES says although they will not accept any work that is racist, discriminatory, violent or hate filled.

Abroad the zine culture is widely-known and popular, and in Cyprus this is perhaps one of the biggest attempts to bring this art form into the spotlight and give the creative community a platform. “Abroad,” says AZINES, “there are collectors, secret zine exchange games, zine fairs and festivals and zine libraries that support and host their local zine creators. The global and local zine culture is expanding and more people are engaging with zine-making”.

This growth was boosted over the past few years and its associated crises. “This is a genre of expression mostly rising from the feminist, punk and activist movements as well minority movements. The most important part of these zine communities is to bring people together and create safe spaces of diversity and acceptance,” AZINES says.

In Cyprus, the zine community is alive and as the well-attended library and exhibition opening showed, there is a big interest, both from creators and readers. Many zine artists came forward and contacted the library to feature their work so AZINES expect their collection to grow fast.

“This has its roots decades back,” they say. “Through our research, we have gone as far back as the mid 80s and a group of then youngsters who were publishing their political zine in Greek, called Train in the City, in Limassol. And then there was a very active wave of zine making in the early 2000s when Chris Malapitan organised zine events and workshops with his zine Pixel This, at the Pantheon Gallery in Nicosia. Those events in the early 2000s are fondly remembered by everyone who participated or was involved – they get nostalgic about the vibe of that era and what they achieved and what it offered to the culture scene in general”.

There have been workshops and attempts to mainstream zines since, AZINES says and “normalising zines and their quirky and vast spectrum. The culture and community are there, and so is the local history of this genre.”

The exhibition at Garage features the library’s collection so far, some of which are important because of the time and debate they were published in, others because of their content. “What is characteristic of all zines, though, is that they are mirrors of their creators’ personalities and one can find amazing ideas, words and images in each and every one of them. Everything is unique and incomparable to the rest.”

An upcoming zine event will see documentary screening on the zine and punk culture, details of which will be announced on the AZINES library Instagram account @azines_library. And the AZINES team hope more will follow.

How to showcase all the non-linear ways to conceptualise and create a zine is another goal of the library. “We hope,” they conclude, “to normalise it as a creative means of expression. There is no one acceptable way of doing, composing, creating a zine and that, we believe, is amazing.”

Zine Exhibition

Exhibition of the collection of the first zine library in Cyprus. Until March 24. Garage, Nicosia. Tuesday-Friday: 5pm-8pm and by appointment. [email protected]. Tel: 22-001508