LIBRARIIMUN

“I work a lot with scraps of the archive. I work a lot with unknown persons, nameless figures, ensembles, collectives, multitudes, the chorus. That’s where my imagination of practice resides. That’s where my heart resides.”
- Sadiya Hartman, “On working with archives”

(𝕐𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠𝕨) 𝔽𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝔻𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞 𝟚 <sub>An anthology published by @occasionaldispatch
featuring contributions from Asian Canadian artists.

Cover: metallic gold text screen-printed on yellow cardstock
Body pages: black and white
Size: 9.75” x 8.125”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine Story: Zine story: Purchased in a popup shop in West Toronto while walking home from a tea festival. Had already been following Occasional Dispatch and had missed out on getting a copy of Issue 1. Was quite excited to see it in the shop window.</sub>

𝕌𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕥𝕝𝕖𝕕
<sub>A short six-page comic by creator, 6-hours.tumblr on the inexplicability of emotional experience. 

Cover and body pages: white card stock, illustrations in colour
Size: 7.75” x 5.625”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine story: This is probably from one of the earliest batches of zines I ever bought, likely while browsing at Canzine. I’ve always loved how simple and striking this text is. How effectively and effortlessly it conveys what it wants to and how it doesn’t strain to resolve something that doesn’t always need more explanation. Something about its comfort with necessary temporality. With presence. with contradiction.</sub>

𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤 - 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖
<sub>A 12-page perzine by Chris-Roberts Antieau against fear and toward a creative and intentional life.

Cover: blue text stock, colour
Body: warm white text stock, black and white
Size: 8” x 5.25”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine story: I bought this zine on impulse while seeing it in @antieaugallery in New Orleans while there on a short trip with some friends in 2019. The bold style and vibrant energy of the illustrations really caught my eye and overall, the zine is just such a fun and celebratory romp. Fun fact: my friend took a look at it as we left the gallery and doubled back to purchase her own copy.</sub>

𝕗𝕠𝕝.𝕔𝕝
<sub>A collaborative project about entanglement by Vancouver-based artists.
Poetry by Victoria Hrincu
Illustrations by Melissa Soleski
Layout by Erica Wilk & Melissa Soleski
Printed by @monikerpress in an edition of 150

Cover: grey green cover stock with black illustration
Body: cold text stock, black, white and red
Size: 7.875” x 5.25”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine story: Another publication I picked up at a zine fair (possibly Canzine?) and was instantly enamoured by the uncanny head/hair motifs and also the accordion cover that allows the book to house two separate registers of body text in an endless loop format. It was also one of my first exposures to the risograph format.</sub>

ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕥𝕠 𝔹𝕦𝕣𝕟 ℙ𝕒𝕡𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕒𝕕
<sub>An 18 page essay zine by Annie Wong, published by @micemag on the diasporic experience of temporality, familial and ancestral relations, and meaning-making through ritual. Printed by @colourcodeprint

Cover: yellow card stock with black and white text
Body pages: text stock, black, white and yellow; transparency insert, digitized handwriting marginalia by designer Emmie Tsumura  
Size: 7.” x 5”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine story: I first read this when it came out in MICE mag’s digital publication. The physical copy (if I’m not wrong), I purchased directly from the MICE booth at a winter zine fair held at @xpacecc! I love both the form and content of this zine. It’s one of my favourites to show students because of how simple and effective the formal interventions are to elevate an already powerful critical essay.</sub>

ℚ𝕦𝕖𝕖𝕣 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 𝕃𝕖𝕩𝕚𝕔𝕠𝕟
閱酷字典<sub>A bilingual 14-page zine by @queer_reads_library, featuring a collection of queer words in Cantonese, Mandarin and English alongside short definitions and illustrations. More at queerlexicon.com.

Cover and Body: matte warm-tone grey paper stock featuring digital full colour.
Size: 8.25” x 6”
Binding: Saddle-stitched

Zine story: Gifted to me by fellow zine-loving @byjasonli. This is such a fun lil publication that is so celebratory of queer language in its many proliferations.</sub>

𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕚𝕤 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕨𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕠𝕕𝕒𝕪? <sub>A bilingual 24-page zine by @miraeerae, on musings over loss and grief and check-ins, mediated and held through korean and english, through the guiding metaphor of the weather.

Cover: textured pastel purple card stock with watercolour and colour pencil
Body: textured warm-tone paper stock and mylar, featuring black print and pasted diecut colour illustrations.
Size: 6” x 4.5”
Binding: Pamphlet-stitched with white thread

Zine story: This zine was made by a good friend and collaborator of mine, @miraeerae, in a season where we were busy with community arts programming in Toronto, where we were all based at the time. As a fellow bilingual, I understand the itch and tension Mirae is exploring as she moves back and forth between English and Korean, and how that tension of un/translatability is also a really tangible emotion in the face of loss. It’s a sweet and powerful little zine that packs a lot of sentiment.</sub>

𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕤
<sub>A dreamy 28-page zine by @louscribbles of illustrated portals and short lines of text that gather memories.

Cover: cold white card stock Body: cold white paper stock and digital black and white. Size: 5” x 5”
Binding: Saddle-stitched Edition: No 21 / of 40

Zine story: This lovely little zine was one of my earlier acquisitions, and its cover of many portals is one of my favourite covers. So simple and evocative.</sub>

𝕃𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕔𝕒𝕡𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕠𝕗 𝕀𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕦𝕤  <sub>An illustrated three-colour risograph comic zine by @wentingthings, depicting an imagined narrative of the titular poem by William Carlos Williams.

Cover: warm white cardstock in three-colour riso
Body: cold white paper stock in three-colour riso
Size: 4.5” x 6”
Binding: Saddle-stitched Edition: No 8 / 250

Zine story: @wentingthings is an illustrator friend whose work I love very much. This zine was one of the first little books of hers that I acquired, and the dreamy landscapes featured in its pages resonate strongly with the poetic register that I work and think in.</sub>

(2024)
<sub>by yifan
“A politics of repair is a healing politics, This healing politics doesn’t seek to overthrow, reform, or return to the old; nor does it still believe in a miraculous leap into the radically untethered new. It reassembles, reinvents and remakes. It re-pairs.”

Cover and body: warm white paper stock with vellum insert
Size: 7.75” x 4.25”
Binding: Perfect bound

Zine story: Picked up at the @singaporeartbookfair in late 2024. Read it during a February winter storm in Toronto. Checked out the citations, downloaded some things.</sub>

<sub>by W.G.F. & Zac x 草根書室
“It could be a stack of cards, a box of scrap paper, the ghost of a slice of wood with its tattoos… In any case, it can definitely not be a book.”

Size: 12” x 8.5” Packaging: Brown cardboard box with various printed ephemera (postcards, spiral un/bound booklet, receipt paper scroll, library card etc.)

Zine story: caught my eye as I was walking OUT the door of @grassrootsbookroom and doubled back to pick it up. I’ve spent a lot of time recently and presented it as part of a paper for an English conference. A fun genre and form-focused exploration (dystopian worldbuilding) of very real issues of censorship.</sub>

𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕕𝕠𝕟’𝕥 𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕜, 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘   <sub>by Mingli

Size: 8.5 x 10cm
Opens to one sheet of A3 paper

“listen closely”

Zine story: i picked this up on a whim at the @singaporeartbookfair in 2024, near the end of my rounds through the hall. its simplicity charmed me, but the collaborators it gathered together in its form was just so lovely. an imagined melody in notation form and audio clip (@_pandamachine) for each flower found on @hellomings’ walks. i almost kept it for myself, but eventually, after documenting it decided to gift it to a friend who declared, after looking through it that they loved it. there’s something beautiful about zines in transit.</sub>

𝕀 𝕒𝕞 𝕒 𝕔𝕣𝕠𝕨.
<sub>by shiwashiwa

Cover and body: grey text stock
Size: 2.125” x 2.375”
Binding: tiny staple saddle stitch

Zine story: Knowing my love for all things corvid-related, @ayebbey picked this one up for me from Tokyo, while she was on vacation. It’s the most melodramatic zine I’ve read in a while, and I love the contrast of its drama-packed pages into its size.</sub>

ℍ𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕂𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕄𝕚𝕝𝕜 𝕋𝕖𝕒
<sub>by Jamie Fung

It’s @jamiethefung’s world, and we were just all beamed into it. 👀👀 Featuring a bag of custom-blend black tea, a small zine and a set of stickers,

Booklet Size: 3.75” x 4.25”

Zine story: Studiomate and local printer Jamie Fung debuts his first zine with a custom HK milk tea blend pack and stickers.</sub>