Meet Wai Ho, the founder of Mellow Yellow Aotearoa, one of the first radical zines dedicated to Asian feminists to speak and communicate their specific and diverse experiences. “Colonisation, Migration and Reconnecting” However, zine making ended up being more about building relationships, engaging in activism, and understanding myself through very bad crafting.” “And didn’t think my creative work was really that good.
“I had never really thought about writing or drawing anything prior to this,” says Singh. “More specifically I was introduced to what zines were through a panel discussion made up of Mellow Yellow contributors.” “I found out about zines back when I was involved in Feminists of Colour ,” says Cho. Shakti Youth’s Auckland coordinator Emma Cho and Migrant Zine Collective’s core member Jasmin Singh also discovered zines in a politically charged space. MZ was also involved with a high school activist group called Radical Youth, which created and distributed a zine named If you’re not OUTRAGED, you’re not paying attention. “I was really drawn into the ethic of DIY and creating things yourself, self-publishing and distributing knowledge and ideas that are not commonly accessible.” I think aside from fanzines for underground bands, they also serve a political purpose of consciousness-raising. “My understanding of zine culture in the west, is that it comes from counter-cultural movements such as punk, feminism, diy, anarchist and activist culture. There used to be an anarcha-feminist zine/comic shop called Cherry Bomb comics who used to sell zines.
“I encountered zines through being part of that community. “I was into punk music as a teenager and had started getting involved in social justice activism,” they say. “There’s something quite raw and real about zine-making in the act of cutting and pasting, doodling and photocopying where anything is valid.”īut where did this subculture originate from and how has it manifested itself in the local creative scene?įor MZ, the journey began when they were a teenager and involved with the Auckland punk scene. “You don’t need to cite, grammar and spell check every minor thing.” “There are no rules, no editor telling you to change anything, says MZ, a 1.5 generation Chinese feminist and contributor to Mellow Yellow. With the subculture of zine-making expanding in Aotearoa, these small DIY publications have become an increasingly significant medium for Asians living in diaspora.īeing a zine-maker myself, and the founder of Migrant Zine Collective, I decided to delve deeper into what zines are and how they have been contributing to the creative scene for Asian zine-makers in Aotearoa. It starts off with an idea, photocopying, creating, printing and stapling, and finally comes the birth of your very own publication, fit for circulating across the community. Radical, Raw and Real: Asian Diaspora Activism through Zine-making
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