OUGD602 - Zine Workshop with NEST Magazine and Leeds Arts Union

As part of Leeds Arts University's Welfare Week, NEST magazine was asked to run a zine workshop with the idea that it would provide students with time away from their studies and a space to feel free both creatively and mentally. It would also encourage students to engage further with NEST and self-publishing to a wider degree.

In order to fund the workshop an application was submitted to Twilight Cafe, a project that enables students to run workshops and creative sessions within the University's Blenheim Walk cafe. The application for the zine workshop was accepted and £100 was granted to cover materials and other expenses. Materials for the workshop included plain and coloured paper, pens and pencils, old magazines and newspapers for collaging, glue, scissors and a stapler for binding.

For students who had no prior knowledge or experience a help sheet was prepared. This included a brief history of zines and zine making, a selection of resources should any students wish to find out more, and some diagrams that demonstrate basic zine making techniques.

To help guide students in the workshop itself, a selection of written prompts were created. These included themes and ideas that could provide a starting point for their own zines, and also generate discussion topics to allow students to feel comfortable in the workshop environment.

A small library of zines was assembled for the workshop to allow students to physically explore the possibilities of self publishing. A poster was also created to advertise the event within the university:

The workshop took place over 2 hours in the Blenheim Walk cafe and proved to be a success. Students were eager to engage with the medium of self-publishing, and many stated that the nature of their own courses had not allowed them to do this previously. There was a lot of positive feedback from both students and staff, and means that there should be further opportunities and funding for  more events like this in the future.