CONNECTIC*NT’S ZINE FAIR
SHARED RESOURCES ARE THE NAME OF THE GAME.
Flyer by @Connectic_nt
Held at Bradley Street Bike Co-Op, a bicycle shop located at 138 Bradley St, with the help of their program manager Kai Addae, Connecticunt Zine hosted their New Haven Zine Fair.
What started as an opportunity to promote their magazine allowed Zoe Jensen and Mariana Palaez, Connecticunts' founders, to build a space where fellow artists come to share their work.
The event boasted over 14 different zines covering a variety of topics, from interviews with local creatives to ways to support political causes. Equipped with savory empanadas from Gloria’s Kitchen and delicious baked goods courtesy of Justin Bendigo, we got into the nitty gritty.
Zoe & Mariana gave me a rundown of how this all came to be. After having dropped their second issue (they’re on issue #19 already!), they attended a tabling event run by HyperLinkPress in the city and decided the experience needed to be brought back home.
“It’s really cool to see it kind of feeding itself - it’s like a Zine Machine.”
The event continues to grow each year, and the coordinators spoke fondly of how a few of their fellow Zine creators had at one point looked to them for inspiration or guidance and now displayed their art at the fair.
Shared resources are the name of the game. Mariana gave insight into how much is actually needed to create a zine, from printing materials to photo dimensions. Connecticunt Mag has now aided others in building what we called a “Zine Machine”.
Some of the magazines were informative, allowing their readers to educate themselves on community action, while others were an opportunity for their creators to express themselves artistically. The most beautiful part about it all was that as you walked through, you saw these magazines, sat side-by-side, often created by the same person.
Asjha Malcolm, owner of Jahjah Press, spoke with me about her creative process and how she ended up vending. She explained how her completion of school allowed her to branch out and explore what her artistry meant without being beholden to an institution.
Hailing from Hartford, CT, she uses her art as a means to inform herself and others on current events & encourage community-based learning opportunities.
“It’s really a celebration of print media, Connecticut artists, and the beauty of community.”
In speaking with Asjha’s intern, Elijah Jaquez-Starks, we touched on how much better it was to experience art in its physical form, getting the chance to interact directly with an artist’s work as opposed to being inundated with ads every few scrolls. The people yearn for the early days of the printing press.
There’s been a push on social media for up-and-coming artists to explore print media as a means of inspiration and education.
Photos by @JunglexJulia
As art, with the help of social media, becomes a sort of revolving door for artists in the journey to create longevity, people emphasize the importance of referring back to physical media. We see this with Rian’s fashion reading list, endless Substack posts & elders in the art community’s insistence that younger artists study the greats.
These Zine Fairs speak to people‘s understanding of the importance of creating and supporting, and preserving physical media in a time of uncertainty surrounding the permanence of digital distribution.
These fairs are meant to be seasonal, and there have already been whispers of an October event. Will we see you there?
