Well, zines in the museum, really. Take Care have been invited to host a zine workshop at the Australian Museum’s Jurassic Lounge. Basically, the Jurassic Lounge is a marketing ploy to get young, hip folk to go to the museum at night-time while various events catered to young, hip folk go on around them. The kind of thing, in other words, that would normally have me run screaming into the night. I’m a youngish, unhip person who enjoys going to museums anyway and doesn’t need to be lured to them with the promise of drinks included in the ticket price and an opportunity to hang out under laser lights with people my own age. Normally when I go to the Australian museum I’m the oldest person there who is not accompanying a child. My favourite displays are the crystals, then the dinosaurs. Anyway, as I say, every instinct in me said that doing a zine workshop at the Jurassic Lounge would not be cool. It was obviously part of an increasing wave of events put on by big public (and sometimes corporate) institutions that see zines as a way to get more people of a certain age through their doors. I’m not of the opinion that this does much for the zine community, or the quality of zines that get made. But a few things made me decide that it was a good thing to do: 1) if big institutions are going to put on zine events anyway, it’s probably good if people who have some investment in the zine community are involved so that an alternative image of zines is presented, i.e., people don’t necessarily have to come away with a Frankie magazine idea of what a zine is. 2) the workshops are being coordinated by Clare, who, aside from being a nice person, works for the Bower Re-use and Repair centre at the Addison Road Community Centre, which is a worthy initiative. Clare has recently started a project of collecting and cataloguing DIY and eco themed zines to include in the Bower’s (relatively new) library, which is a pretty awesome space, and I highly recommend that you check it out next time you’re in Marrickville. 3) we thought it was a good opportunity to wrangle people into making tiny zines for the Snapdragon Zine Pinata, and 4) we went to one of the workshops to say hi to Clare and it was set up in a reconstruction of a cave. A CAVE. That won us over. We like caves.
So, tedious justifications aside, there you go. We’ll be at the Jurassic Lounge on the 23rd of August from 5:30, so if you’ve been thinking about heading to the museum, that would be a good time to go. More details here.
I still think a critique of zine events happening in big state and corporate institutions would be worth writing. But could I be bothered? I think, rather than that, I would rather do things like organise the Snapdragon Fair, and hopefully, given time, the number of events organised from within the dark depths of the zine community will out-weigh those organised by people who see zines as a way of fulfilling their youth services quota or something… (am I too cynical?)
August 16, 2011 at 11:36 am |
As I’m sure you know, the word for cave exploration is ‘spelunking’ (one of my all-time favourite words). So does this make a zinester working in a cave (even a reproduction cave) a… zelunker?
August 16, 2011 at 11:37 am |
Or a zilunker? Hmmmm…
August 18, 2011 at 4:07 am |
You might also like to know that Jurassic Lounge is not programmed by a big institution but by a small non-profit organization called The Festivalists.
We have 4 members of staff, we’re passionate about what we do and none of us are especially cool nor hip.
The Zine workshop is part of our programming philosophy, which encourages visitors to express themselves and interpret their environment creatively (in this case the Museum and its collection), looping some of that expression back into the displays. It’s not just a cynical audience development exercise. Like most of what we program at Jurassic Lounge, it’s just a slightly different way for people to engage with the Museum and the exhibit.
We’re thrilled to have you and hope you’ll have a blast! If you’ve got any suggestions and feedback as to how zines can be brought into large public institutions without compromising the integrity of zine culture it’d be great to have a chat!
Cheers,
Matt Ravier
Artistic Director
The Festivalists
August 18, 2011 at 5:33 am |
Hi Matt,
I did see on the Museum website that your organisation was involved in programming the Jurassic Lounge, and to be honest I didn’t investigate you guys before writing this post, which was stupid of me. But despite what your intentions may be – and I don’t question for a moment that they come from a good place – my concern (perhaps ‘concern’ is too strong a word – it’s interesting, that’s all) is that when zines are encountered in the context of big galleries and museums it really does have a strong effect on the way people receive them and the ways they then think about zine culture and their (potential) involvement in it. And despite my own personal feelings about all this, I have no idea how to maintain the integrity, as you put it, of zines in such contexts, or whether it’s even worth worrying about.
I’m sorry if my post gave the impression that I am totally down on the whole idea of the Jurassic Lounge – the point was really to take the piss out of myself by suggesting that I could have such stong feelings about something but be won over by the opportunity to sit in a cave, which I am genuinely excited about, zines or no zines. But I have to stand by my assertion that the Jurassic Lounge is, whatever the Festivalists ‘programing philosophy’, a way for the Museum to market itself to a youth/young adult demographic, with all the risks of cultural appropriation which that entails. Cultural appropriation in a museum – that’s never happened…
But really, we were very excited to be invited to run the workshop and for the opportunity to cyncially use it to advertise our own zine fair, so hopefully we’ll see you there.
August 18, 2011 at 5:50 am |
The cave is pretty cool isn’t it.
Jurassic Lounge is an experiment. One of its objectives, certainly, is audience development. What’s been interesting is seeing just how much visitors are engaging with the collection, the displays and the special exhibitions (on top of the karaoke, the silent disco etc).
There are no 100% satisfactory way to make museum more accessible and more relevant to new audiences, but there’s lot to be gained from the attempt. I’m genuinely curious about your thoughts on this… I’ll come down to the cave for a chat!
M
September 29, 2011 at 8:21 am |
Have you ever been to the Page Parlour fair in the Atrium at Federation Square, Melbourne? I’ve sold zines there twice.
Nice people – horrid location. My wife frequently describes Fed Square as totalitarian, in that it dwarves the individual and is an extravagant demonstration of the power and wealth of the state (it was commissed by the Kennett government in the wake of the Melbourne casino).
The Atrium itself is both physically and metaphorically cold (it often gets a winter wind blown in from the street, it gets little natural sun, and has a grey metallic colour). You just have to do your best to bring human warmth to the location in the circumstances!
Locations can matter a lot. What is it real estate agents say all the time? ‘Spot spot spot…’