ARCHIVAL ZINES:

COUNTER-ARCHIVING TO TELL UNTOLD STORIES

A collaboration with artist and photographer Nadine Stijns, for KABK x Leiden University’s Practicum Artium programme.

In this project, students create zines using their own photography alongside archival footage from the Europeana archival collections.

Students learn to take a critical lens to the perspective of not only the photographer, but also that of the archivist and institution: Who or what is represented in the archive? Who or what is not? How can contemporary practice create a dialogue with the archive to bring it back to life, using storytelling techniques such as critical fabulation to tell untold stories?

Students then use hands-on craft techniques, such as folding, bookbinding, stitching, writing, and collage to create zines to explore these stories. The history of zines as activist, independent publishing and their low-fidelity and handmade qualities make them the ideal medium for reintroducing the personal into the archive.

At the end of the term, students plan a public exhibition of the zines to present their work alongside the other outcomes of the Practicum Artium programme.

Above: A grid of student zines form the project laid open to various spreads, showing students’ own photography and writing alongside archival footage.

Below: In-class zine presentation day and zine by student Sandy.