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What are zines doing in a museum

Museums and libraries, such as Wellcome Collection, create structures for selecting and organising the objects that enter their collections. Zines are unwieldy, DIY publications that resist categorisation. On the face of it, zines and museums are not a good fit, but Lea Cooper argues, they have a lot to offer each other.

Words by Lilith (Lea) Cooperaverage reading time 8 minutes

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Front cover of the zine 'Swallow it whole'. The cover is dominated by a large open mouth showing tongue, teeth and lips. The mouth is surrounded by a collage of images of people, tablets, leaflets and illustrations. The text on the cover says "A zine about PrEP for women. Swallow it Whole. A collaboration between Blackfly and Prepster."
Swallow it whole : a zine about PrEP for women, Blackfly & Prepster. Source: Wellcome Collection. © PrEPster and Black Fly Zine, [2019] / Wellcome Collection.

Wellcome Collection began collecting zines in 2016 after a conversation between Wellcome librarians Nicola Cook, Loesja Vigour, and Mel Grant who each noticed a surge in perzines related to mental health. Today, the collection holds over 1,400 zines which reflect Wellcome’s focus on health and human experience.

The challenge of zines

Zines present a unique challenge to how museums and libraries collect and categorise objects, as well as the ethical responsibilities they have to zine makers and their communities. The librarians at Wellcome Collection responded to these challenges in various ways, drawing on the experiences of other librarians as documented in the ‘Zine Librarian’s Code of Ethics’ zine.

Rather than receiving purchased and donated objects from around the world, Wellcome’s librarians sought out zine makers online, at zine fairs and exhibitions, in community groups, and individually. This allowed the team to identify and collect zines that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. It also allowed the zine collection to develop in dialogue with zine-making communities.

The librarians in the collections team also decided that the category of zines should be determined by zine makers. If the maker said what they had made was a zine — whether it was a single sheet of paper or a bound, multi-page work — then that was how it would be categorised in the collection.

A digital tablet resting on a plane background. The screen shows a page from the digital zine ‘Zine-maker: a zine about zining’. The heading at the top of the page is 'Types of zines' and there are hand-drawn boxes containing text on the page that describe different kinds of zines.
Zine-maker: a zine about zining, Meg-John Barker. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Meg-John Barker / Wellcome Collection.

Zine-maker: a zine about zining’, a digital zine created by Meg-John Barker.

In this page from ‘Zine-maker: a zine about zining’, creator Meg-John Barker confirms that zines “can be anything – any size, shape, quality, format”.

Many zines are a size and shape that is easy to reproduce, like a folded A5 booklet, but there isn’t a single standard shape to a zine. Barker’s zine is handwritten, with the appearance of a page torn from a ring binder, which means that even though this is a digital zine, it stays connected to the paper materials with which it was made. Where typewritten text can give a sense of disembodied authority, the handwriting makes the author more visible as a person.

An open sheet of A4 paper with multiple folds and a cut to make it into an 8 page pocket zine. The page is dominated by a pencil illustration of a young woman's face and neck with her hand resting on one side of her face. Around the illustration, which flows into all eight pages is hand-written text. The zine is called 'Contemplating researcher' by Clara.
Contemplating researcher, Clara Searle. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Clara Searle / Wellcome Collection.

'Contemplating researcher' is a single folded paper zine inspired by an illustration held by Wellcome Collection.

'Contemplating researcher' is a zine made by Clara Searle during a workshop she led, which explored the experiences of PhD researchers of colour. The large pencil drawing that spills across all pages of the zine is visible only in fragments when the zine is folded. It was inspired by an illustration in the collections, labelled 'A Woman leaning wistfully on a large cushion'.

Searle describes being drawn to the image. However, rather than attempting to echo the sitter, she focuses on "the tiredness I feel when I catch myself sat in thought". Searle doesn’t have to tell us this though, the unfolded image conveys a deep fatigue, her face gently resting in her hands.

Third space knowledge

Loesja Vigour from the collections team explains how zines filled a gap in Wellcome’s collections, bringing “the voices of people talking about their health, living with health conditions and sharing their experiences of what it meant to them to be LGBTQ+, disabled, minoritised or excluded from the mainstream”. The zines offer valuable insight that often is missing from conventionally published materials. 

Some zines, rather than being straightforward accounts of their maker’s personal experiences, bring together lived experience with academic, professional and official knowledge – drawing connections between the different ways of knowing, blurring and blending them to create a new type of ‘third-space’ knowledge.

Third-space knowledge, as defined by academic and activist Adela C. Licona in her study of zines made by feminist, anti-racist zine makers of colour, is a form of knowledge that emerges from the space (or movement) between lived experience and professional or academic knowledge. It challenges the traditional boundaries between lived experience and medical practice, which institutions like Wellcome Collection have historically used to organise their collections.

Front cover of the zine 'Swallow it whole'. The cover is dominated by a large open mouth showing tongue, teeth and lips. The mouth is surrounded by a collage of images of people, tablets, leaflets and illustrations. The text on the cover says "A zine about PrEP for women. Swallow it Whole. A collaboration between Blackfly and Prepster."
Swallow it whole : a zine about PrEP for women, Blackfly & Prepster. Source: Wellcome Collection. © PrEPster and Black Fly Zine, [2019] / Wellcome Collection.

'Swallow it whole' is a booklet zine that combines heath information with personal experiences of taking medication.

The makers of ‘Swallow it whole’ aim “to create a Black women-centred zine, which integrates pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) messages with our existing sexual health concerns and represents us in our own image”. The zine combines information about PrEP, a medication that reduces the risk of getting the HIV virus, with collages, poems, prose and artwork around sexual health in general. The zine doesn’t treat PrEP, or the messaging around it, as something that people engage with in isolation from the rest of their experiences.

The creative offerings in this zine highlight the limitations of medical knowledge for engaging with experiences with PrEP. One of the contributors, Kuchenga describes a person aspect of taking PrEP: “Every morning, just after breakfast, I swallow something that gives me a reminder that my body is worth of protection”.

Photo of the front cover of a zine called 'Did it help? The subtitle of the zine, written below the title says: "getting an autism diagnosis in early middle age".
'Did it help?', Heena. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Heena/Wellcome Collection.

'Did it help?' explores what it means to be autistic beyond a medical diagnosis.

Medical diagnosis relies on privileging certain forms of knowledge; medical professionals have the authority to diagnose because they have specific training and education. The zine ‘Did it help?’ unpacks creator Heena’s experience of getting an autism diagnosis in their early 40s. They connect their present-day life and past memories to explore what it means to be autistic.

Heena’s sense of being autistic precedes the diagnosis, and they continue to reflect on the ways it “only explains things to an extent”. Throughout the zine, Heena holds onto the complexity of their lived experience and attempts to tease out the relationship between medical knowledge in the form of diagnosis, and their everyday life.

A single sheet of A4 paper unfolded in 8 parts with cuts to make it into a pocket zine. The Zine is called 'The problem of knowledge' and there are texts and illustrations on all eight parts of page that constitute pages.
The problem of knowledge, T. O. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection. © T.O. Walker / Wellcome Collection.

'The problem of Kowledge' is a pocket zine that explores how some knowledge and experiences of health are undervalued.

On a page of this pocket zine ‘The Problem of Knowledge’, PhD researcher Tamsin Walker illustrates a conversation between a group of people around a table. A figure in a t-shirt proposes a platform for survivor voices that have been excluded from mainstream mental health campaigns. The three figures in formal clothing undermine the value of this with their questions.

The quote beneath this illustration connects the conversation to the work of philosopher Miranda Fricker on ‘epistemic injustice’ – the result of undervaluing or dismissing the knowledge of someone because of their identity. An example of epistemic injustice is when the voices of people living with a particular condition aren’t present in museums or libraries because they aren’t academics or medical professionals. Walker’s zine invites us to tangle out epistemic injustice in real-life situations.

The front cover of a zine titled '‘MadZine Methodology’ by Jill Anderson and Hel Spandler.The cover is formed of a gird of brightly coloured squares containing: drawings of people's heads, cutout text boxes and bits of string sewn into the surface with the ends hanging loose.
‘MadZine Methodology’, Jill Anderson and Hel Spandler. Source: Madzine Research. © Jill Anderson and Hel Spandler / Wellcome Collection.

The creators of 'MadZine Methodology' aim to use the potential of MadZines to challenge prevailing understandings, diagnoses and treatments around mental health.

In crafting  ‘MadZine Methodology’, Jill Anderson and Hel Spandler from the MadZines project used the zine-making process to think with zines rather than just about them – making explicit how both research and zines create knowledge.  Usually, the final output from a research project is a book chapter or journal article, but here they are using the form of a zine to offer, or craft, a different form of knowledge. Rather than their research being separate from and potentially inaccessible to the people whose zines they’re studying, the makers are instead working in the same form.

Disrupting the museum

Sometimes, the content of a zine directly challenges the ways museums replicate or perpetuate stereotypes and systematic oppression in their categorisations or displays. The title of this zine, ‘The Blob’, is Charlotte Cooper’s name for a sculpture by John Isaacs, which was in the ‘Medicine Now’ exhibition at Wellcome Collection until 2019. This zine accompanied a dance performance by Cooper and Kay Hyatt at Wellcome Collection.

Illustration from a zine called 'The Blob' by Dr Charlotte Cooper. The page shows an armchair on top of a patterned rug and at the bottom of the image is a partial view of a phone displaying a text message. The writing at the top of the image reads "Some things I would like to give the Blob..."
'The blob' zine, Dr Charlotte Cooper.. Source: Wellcome Collection. © Dr Charlotte Cooper/Wellcome Collection.

'The Blob' was the result of an event at Wellcome Collection. Both the zine and the performance directly challenged an artwork about obesity that was on display in Wellcome Collection.

In the zine, Cooper explores the ways that this sculpture manifests a specific obesity discourse, reflects power, and fatphobia. The illustration from the zine details how she would like to give the Blob a warm blanket, a big comfy chair and send them texts, inviting them to hang out. This offering contrasts with the original exhibition display, which offered clinical display labels and the relentless gaze of visitors.

Zine culture in the museum

Alongside the development of the zine collection, Wellcome Collection has engaged with audiences and communities through a regular zine club, organised by staff, and through one-off zine workshops, inviting people to explore different themes and respond through their own zines which can be added to the collection.

In ‘Queering Wellcome Collection’ creator Rowan Frewin offers insights into specific objects in the rest of the collection, viewing these through current understandings of LGBTQ+ lives and experiences. Frewin responds not just to the presence of queer history in Wellcome Collection, but to its absence, and offers a different perspective on how these objects are recorded and presented in the collections, highlighting the epistemic injustice inherent in their misrepresentation or absence.

The zine 'Queering Wellcome Collection' was the result of a workshop that examined representations (and absences) of LGBTQ+ lives and experiences in the collections.

Collecting and presenting zines within a museum setting raises serious ethical questions. In response, the collections team at Wellcome developed an ethical framework for collecting and cataloguing zines. Zine makers are notified when their zines are acquired and consulted on how their work is described in the collection catalogue. Crucially, zine-makers can request their zines removed from the collection at any point.

Bringing zines into the Wellcome Collection not only introduced new voices and new perspectives on health and the human experience to the collections, it also introduced new ways of working with a collection. The approach the collections team took was shaped by the needs of the zines they were collecting, and this continues to shape Wellcome’s approach, for example in the exhibition ‘Zines Forever!’ and in the article you are currently reading.

About the author

Black and white photograph of the head and shoulders of a young white person with short blonde hair and glasses. They are smiling and looking straight at the camera.

Lilith (Lea) Cooper

(they/them)

Lea Cooper is a zine-maker and zine librarian at Edinburgh Zine Library. They recently completed a practice-based PhD working with the zines at Wellcome Collection. They live on the Fife coast in Scotland.