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IAA Zines

Fostering cross cultural communication about public health, mental health, cultural politics, and more

In partnership with: the Institute for Digital Humanity; Hamline University; North Central University

Methods and Narrative:

Given the cheap material and simple production process, zine publication naturally lends itself to collaborative and creative expression.  The IAA has often used zine-making events and zine exchanges as opportunities to facilitate dialogue around issues related to public health, mental health, and cultural politics.   Zine events are a straightforward means for students and communities to playfully offer their own perspectives on issues they normally might not talk about with people they might not normally talk to.

Exhibits:

​Sad Girls and Bad Girls: How Illness is a Tool of Oppression
December 8, 2018
Collaborative Zine with First Year Seminar Students-- Fall 2018 (FSEM 1010-08 'Sad Girls to Riot Grrrls and the Aesthetics of Affect')

​Sick Not Broken: Illness as a Tool of Oppression
September 9, 2020
What follows is a 'crash course' in medical rhetoric with particular interest given to the morphology of 'madness.' The collection of essays were produced at Hamline University Winter 2020 in Art 1980- Sad Girls to Riot Grrrls: Zines and Bookmaking.

​OK Boomer: How the economic policies of three generations ruined the economy for their descendants
September 14, 2020
This is a continuation of our first class zine publication "Sickeningly Mad". Mental illness today does not focus around individual illness, but is based on socioeconomic class. und individual illness, but is based on socioeconomic class. This capitalist, privatized healthcare system makes it impossible for low income citizens and minorities to receive ample healthcare. We expand on this by talking about the historical background of systemic racism, privatized asylums, and the difference of treatment between the advantaged and privileged members of society versus the disadvantaged.

​Sickeningly Mad
October 12, 2020
What follows is a 'crash course' in medical rhetoric with particular interest given to the morphology of madness. This collection of essays were produced at Hamline University Fall 2020 by first year students in FySem 1010-05-- Sick, Sad, Girl: Zines and the Morphology of Madness. In this first publication we sought to give a foundational understanding of the morphology of madness in an accessible -and free- reader for folks without the structural or capital support to study these topics in an academic setting.

​Hopeful Women: A Response to Sad Girl Feminist Theory
October 29, 2020
This zine exchange is a small step toward re-engagement, and the search for shared common values, on the crises facing all women (and all people) who are suffering from institutionalized gender prejudices. Neither proselytization nor condemnation, Hopeful Women (juxtaposed against Sad Girls and Bad Girls), aesthetically enacts the common humanity between riot girl feminists and Christian women. In both zines, we see young people - of all colors and backgrounds - wrestling with the same brutal truths of trauma, sexual harassment, mental illness, and soul-crushing depression. The difference is the response to these challenges: Gleeful, punk-rock embrace of the suffocating oppression of patriarchal power versus transcendent optimism in the symbiosis of suffering and grace. Hopeful Women reminds us that intersectionality is the answer, and that all religions and ideologies deserve a say in how we make the world healthy, open, and safe for our daughters, sisters, mothers, and sons.

​Racial Disparities in the Mental Health System
December 14, 2020
What you are about to read are compiled essays and visuals that are meant to bring insight into the racial disparities in the mental health system. The following essays and visuals were created at Hamline University Fall 2020 by four first year students in FySem 1010-05 -- Sick, Sad, Girl: Zines and the Morphology of Madness.

​Mental Inequality
January 6, 2021
This is a continuation of our first class zine publication "Sickeningly Mad". Mental illness today does not focus around individual illness, but is based on socioeconomic class. und individual illness, but is based on socioeconomic class. This capitalist, privatized healthcare system makes it impossible for low income citizens and minorities to receive ample healthcare. We expand on this by talking about the historical background of systemic racism, privatized asylums, and the difference of treatment between the advantaged and privileged members of society versus the disadvantaged.

Zine Methods and Narrative
Zine Exhibits
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