As the core team behind “Unfolded Zine” discussed the theme for their annual issue, Medill senior and former Daily staffer Michelle Sheen said the team wanted it to engage with the arts in a way that could be “rebellious.” The team eventually settled on “Outrageous” as the theme.
Created by Northwestern’s Asian Pacific American Coalition in 2022, “Unfolded Zine” features visual art and writing by Asian Pacific Islander Desi American students.
With a collection including photographs, poems, drawings, essays and other forms of art, the publication is a space where APIDA students can come into conversation with one another through their art, Sheen said.
SESP senior Kiran Bhat said she joined the zine her sophomore year when she submitted photographs she had taken in her grandmother’s garden. One of these photos was used in the cover art for the zine’s issue that year, she said.
Since then, Bhat has become more involved with the logistical work behind “Unfolded Zine,” she said. Yet, she continues to submit her work for publication, including a poem last year.
The zine is different from other publications on campus, since it focuses on creative and visual work rather than traditional journalism. Sheen said the zine allows for more freedom in its design, as well as its creative vision.
Submissions often come in the form of drawings, paintings, poetry and photography, she added.
For Bhat, “Unfolded Zine’s” importance lies in bringing people together “under the name of creativity to generate something that’s new and that’s ours,” she said.
Bhat said the team welcomes all types of submissions, and they are very intentional about making sure that everyone who submits gets at least a part of their work featured.
Choosing the theme is one way the team hopes to draw more submissions, Bhat added.
“We’re really intentional about creating a theme that we feel like people will relate to and produce important work about,” Bhat said. “We try to be as inclusive as possible.”
For Weinberg junior Christina Feng, it’s “really interesting” to see the different types of work submitted. Feng is a designer on the zine’s core team and designs spreads for other artists’ work in a way that will enhance their pieces.
Feng added that she collaborates with artists to discuss creative direction before designing the spreads by creating moodboards to serve as design inspiration.
“What makes our zine different from most other magazines on campus is that it’s very heavily visual-focused,” Feng said.
This year, Feng submitted an essay that she had written in high school, which she said represented her personal growth.
Her essay was inspired by a nonfiction book she read and details the way she “realized how society works.” For her, the choice not to revise the essay and submit it as it was was meaningful.
Some artists pull from their existing work for the zine, while others create new pieces based on the theme, Bhat said.
Bhat said she appreciates that the zine creates a space for students to build community and create.
Sheen echoed Bhat’s sentiment, adding that “Unfolded Zine” focuses on bringing into conversation “everything that’s going on right now” in the world. It was particularly important to the zine’s core team that it used art as a way to be more political in its conversations, Sheen said.
The theme “Outrageous” is meant to reflect this, according to Sheen.
“We were thinking about ‘Outrageous’ as the countercultural, outrageous ways that activism disrupts the norm, but then also the smaller acts, more mundane things that are outrageous in the time that we’re in,” Bhat said.
Zines hold an important role both in Asian American spaces and in socio-political spaces in general, she added.
The team will finish putting together the zine by the end of Winter Quarter, and the issue will be launched and distributed in the spring, Sheen said.
Ultimately, Bhat said she finds it “really cool” to be a part of this team, creating a space for students to showcase their work and connect it to current issues.
“Especially given the political nature of the time that we’re in, we wanted to explicitly honor our ties to activist zine history and the power of our organization to be connected to that legacy,” said Bhat.
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