Visitors to Archer Heights Branch can pick up a free zine made by neighborhood teens. The zines are on display next to the children's audiobooks and magazines and are available for patrons to take home and keep.
Students in Topics in World Art at Curie Metro High School created spoken word poetry and zines to react to an issue in their community or to an issue of injustice that they feel passionate about. They used various art processes such as collage, stencils and drawing to produce colorful booklets about topics, including gun violence, animal rights, drug abuse and lack of sanitation in CPS schools.
As a class, they hope to connect to the larger community and neighborhood and are very interested in the reactions of all of those around them. The class also created a blog called Guerrilla Art 5 where you can see digital versions of all the zines and respond in the comments.
Short for magazine or fanzine, zines are self-published booklets that are printed or photocopied and bound by hand. They are usually small and short and are sold in independent bookstores and comic book shops for $3 to $5.
For the people who make them, they're a means of self-expression without having to go through the publishing industry; for readers, they're an inexpensive way to hear unique voices and often deeply personal stories from people within the local community.
