Tuesday 10 January 2012

Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention 2012, Manchester, Saturday May 19

Far from becoming obsolete now anyone can freely share anything anywhere, anytime online, the fanzine is thriving in the age of digital culture, from the simplest photocopied diary-style zine to lavish artists' books and zines created especially for Kindle. The first Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, held during Future Everything in 2011, looked at how self-publishers can harness digital technology to enhance and work alongside the printed word, using the two formats to engage and cross-promote between different audiences.

The second Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention will look at how the virtual world is allowing networks of zine makers to share publications, news and experiences all over the world. There will be a small charge of £2 to enter the building as a Future Everything venue.

Talks 
'Making a noise: An express ride through the world of punk and riot grrrl fanzines and the UK feminist underground, 1977-2012': Cazz Blase

Cazz Blase wrote the fanzine Aggamengmong Moggie between 1993-1999, Real Girls in 2001 and Harlot's Progress between 2002 - 2006. Along with Holly Combe, she is one of two music review editors at The F-Word website, for which she has written extensively about both women and the UK punk scene and the UK riot grrrl scene. She was a contributing author to the book Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! (Black Dog Publishing, 2007). Cazz is from Stockport and blogs about Manchester and Greater Manchester at http://toolateforcake.wordpress.com. She works as a library assistant at Manchester University.

'Pam Ponders Paul Morley's Cat: The Wired and Wonderful World of City Fun': David Wilkinson

David Wilkinson is a writer, musician, public librarian and PhD student working on the politics of British post-punk. City Fun was a Mancunian countercultural publication founded by Andy Zero in 1978. After Liz Naylor and Cath Carroll joined the editorial team, it became the city's dominant post-punk paper until it folded in 1984.

Closed Caption/Rotherham Zine Library

Closed Caption aims to make subversive content through appropriation. This new group, which now replaces Rotherham Zine Library, will make zines that twist found content to create new meaning and revel in the absurdity of social norms. Closed Caption intend to use the zine library as a resource and are looking at how they can add their collection to existing events and places to create interesting new ways to read zines. They also hope to develop the collection by trading zines with others around the world.

Film

Watch Salford Zine Library's 2011 film Self Publishers of the World Take-over, which features self-publishers from all over the world talking about their work. The screening will be followed by a Q and A with director Craig John Barr.

Tours

Visitors will be able to take tours of the building for a small fee of £2.50.

Workshops

Join the Victoria Baths fanzine-making co-operative! 

A fanzine is a small, self-published book or magazine dedicated to a subject the people who are making it love. It is usually personal and handmade and contains a mixture of drawings, writing and things like collages and photos. We think Victoria Baths deserves its own fanzine but we need your help! We want visitors to the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention to help us make a fanzine all about this unique, beautiful building and show us what they like best about this fascinating place!

Join in the workshops in the former superintendent's flat to make either your own, individual Victoria Baths fanzine or add to a Bunting Book that will be displayed in Victoria Baths as one big fanzine for future visitors to see.

Visitors will be able to use:

Selected material from the Victoria Baths Archive 
Be inspired by pictures and memories of the building's past from the Victoria Baths Archive.

Lino cutting and relief printing 
Explore simple relief printing and create unique illustrations and repeatable patterns to adorn your own hand-made zine. Looking at the decorative interiors of Victoria Baths as inspiration, use traditional lino and easy quickprint foam to make unique tile-sized blocks to print wherever you want.

Button book binding 
Discover the stitches to bind and design your very own book using buttons, thread, soft papers and card. You can decorate your book with embroidered stitches inspired by the architecture of the Victoria Baths.

Children welcome.

Co-operative printing

2012 is the United Nations' first International Year of Co-operatives. Leeds-based Footprint Workers' Co-operative are bringing along a Risograph and will discuss how to prepare material for print on a Risograph — learn about page imposition, limits on paper size and margins, two colour work and picture quality for the Risograph digital duplicator with a quick guide to communicating with printers. Footprint will help you get the most of the risograph and make your zines and fliers look better.

Co-operative working and living is creative, empowering and potentially radically anti-capitalist.

Find out:

What are co-ops and why should you be in one? Including workers' co-ops, housing co-ops, community co-ops, collective power and common ownership.

'Alice in apps land: explore your smart phone and your environment', presented by Visual Think Map in collaboration with Shift Space.

During this workshop you will discover the local landscape through digital stories and learn more about apps and the functionality of how your phone can enliven the world around you. Through an interactive and engaging tour of the area near Victoria Baths you will discover and digitally collate, using your phone, a variety of people's memories and your own as we introduce you to new apps and narratives, including old photos and memorabilia of the area. We'll finish by making an interactive map where everyone can share what they've made and then print a map. DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR PHONE AND WE'LL SEE YOU THERE!

'Vapid in a Day' 

Feminist duo Vapid Kitten invite visitors to contribute creatively to a special edition of the fanzine Vapid Kitten (published both in print and for Kindle). They will be constructing issue 8, themed 'Collaboration', throughout the day at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, aiming to include a big mishmash of experiences, words, drawings, collage and poems.

Vapid Kitten will provide some arty equipment and suggestions to get you started and would like to get as many people involved as possible. At the end of the day everyone involved will get a free digital copy of the zine.

Shop

Fanzines from across the country will be available to browse and buy. Nottingham's Caribou, a zine shop in a vintage caravan, will be setting up shop outside the building.

Food

Norwich-based Deerly Beloved Bakery is proud to be celebrating its first birthday at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, returning with good food that is cruelty free including vegan cakes, whoopie pies, brownies and savoury pies and pizza slices. Deerly Beloved Bakery specialises in vegan cakes, pastries, biscuits, cupcakes, muffins, breads, salads, starters, mains and desserts. It does not use any animal products. All cakes and bakes are made by hand in small batches using real bourbon vanilla, unrefined non-bone char sugars and margarines free from hydrogenated fats. No artificial preservatives or flavourings are used.

Exhibition

Posters of Inspirational European Women: Taken from the zine 'Shape & Situate' 

Leeds-based fanzine-maker Melanie Maddison will display a series of posters of inspirational European women around the balcony of the female pool, from her zine entitled 'Shape & Situate'. The posters highlight the (often hidden) history and lives of radical, inspirational women and women's collectives from Europe, connecting us with the past, inspiring us in the present and visually bringing women’s social and political history to life and into view.

If you would be interested in volunteering to help out on the day, please email Natalie.Rose.Bradbury@googlemail.com

Facebook event

Listen to the Shrieking Violet discussing the event on All FM's Under the Pavement radio show, accompanied by musical selections from some of the speakers, here:



See more photos from last year's event here, here and here. Poster by Kate Prior.

Future Everything events elsewhere in the building: Handmade will be a day of contemporary craft, digital hacking, interactivities and DIY culture, including a craft fair and a workshop by Manchester Craft and Design Centre. Find out what's on at http://futureeverything.org/art/whats-on-at-handmade.

1 comment:

Virtual Assistant said...

I wish I can attend your convention. Love to hear your speeches.