Quaran-Zine
Quaran-Zine is a collection of mini zines written and created by artists responding to the current state of the world as they experience it and their imagined futures in a post COVID:19 world.
Each zine has been made by a different artist. All profit from the purchase of these zines will go directly to the artists.
Issues were first released weekly on Thursdays between 9 April and 18 June 2020.
This is a collaborative project curated by Merinda Davies.
Issue I - Merinda Davies
“I’ve been thinking a lot about loneliness through this time and how we might re-form connections in the physical world at the end of all this, maybe while we can’t be with people physically it’s a time to consider ways to connect to the trees and plants around us and see what we can learn? I’ve been perfecting my apocalypse hummus because everything is always better if you have hummus to share. And I’ve been thinking about all the unlearning I’m doing in this time. Unlearning busyness, unlearning expectations, unlearning constant production, unlearning, unlearning, unlearning and walking daily as a process in softness.”
Issue IV - M@ Cornell
“It's tempting to form my own viewpoint by selecting from the multiple choice of arguments we are bombarded with. That things are simple or complex has no bearing on if they are easy or overwhelming. Reflecting upon this Quaran-zine as an object that didn't used to exist and now does, reminds me that genesis has taken place thanks to inspiration and action, and relationships. All precious and integral and intangible. It's humbling to make an offer within such esteemed company. I hope I've choreographed a delightful context for epiphanies and some feelz.”
Issue VII - Aaron Chapman
“Being in this weird holding pattern of life at the moment has blessed me with time — time to spend with family and time to consider family. I've been digging through all my dad's transparencies and have been drawn to the aviation imagery and any slide annotations as they obviously speak to the holding pattern metaphor. But ultimately, during the making of this zine, I was reflecting on family, legacy and solidarity.”
Issue X - Jay Jermyn
“This zine is an amalgamation and distortion of the insanity over the last few months. It’s peppered with the things that stuck out in the last week from the news as that’s all we remember in the constant news cycle. Fragments of 3d scans of myself, my apartment and emails from Facebook degrade themselves into the news cycle.
I feel like I’m in the internet.”
Issue II - Alicia Jones
I considered what would actually be useful information to share in the ZINE. Responding to the social change at hand, opportunity for trade, localising goods and services, walking and staying home to bake felt like a reasonable, inspiring account to flick through. Then my cynicism kicked in and I was reminded of my real process.
I am governed by two aspects: communication and information. Watching that virus roll across the globe was fascinating. After three weeks I was obsessed and after 5, news and zoom fatigued and all sound in my home - silenced. And I remembered where so many of our idle problems come from - the television.
So I provided a simple solution to our social transformation that is a reality now. Please - be courageous.”
Issue V - Ainslee Palmer
"Through many conversations I have had during this time, it seems like people (including myself) are struggling with feeling unproductive, unmotivated and not really themselves. I wanted to create a space that gave people full PERMISSION to feel and be themselves moment to moment without guilt."
Issue VIII - Daniele Constance
"We can't go back to normal", people keep saying. But I think we can, a little too easily in fact.
What was our old normal, our new normal and what are the possibilities for our future normals? Beyond this strange time, will we really have learned anything, are we capable of change? As I watch our communities and societies unfold back into the messy, selfish and privileged state it was before, I cling to hope. But the realities of our capitalist structures seem ever present and unshakeable. I was listening to a podcast where people in India were describing their awe in seeing the Himalayas for the first time. As smog and pollution cleared, the lack of human activity revealed this immense landscape. People can't unsee that. But will we do enough now that we know?.”
Issue XI - Jamie Lewis
“For all the strangeness of these times, I relished in being in one place for a while. Whilst many may not share this privilege of a safe home, I found myself co-existing in a very gentle, calm and nourishing environment with someone I barely knew. That for all the chaos amongst us, I clung on to quiet, stillness and space. I make this zine as restrictions begin to ease – and I wonder, how do we (un)turn the momentum already lost or gained?”
Issue III - Lowana Davies
“I just got back from living in Japan, where public bathing is commonplace. So I had a newfound appreciation for soaking in the tub. When I returned home to Australia in March and went into isolation, I found comfort in recreating a spa ritual for myself. A time for solitude and self-care. It feels like the whole planet wants that right now.”
Issue VI - The Farm
“In our quarantine time, we’ve been thinking and talking, like many of us, about life, death, breath and nature.
Sinking into story and into a fantasy bathed in reality.
Creating something tactile when our work is usually ephemeral.
We closed our screens and picked up our scissors. Our fingers are still bleeding.”
Issue IX - Michael Smith
“I made a zine last week of an entirely different nature and last night recreated this version, which in itself is a response to the fast paced changes in this world. Here is one Cowboy's attempt to reflect on such changes in a way that transcends known, learnt, inherited and engrained Cowboy narratives.
The Western Genre is a time stamp, the Cowboy a metaphor (excluding perhaps John Wayne and the cringe-y collection of 1950-60's Westerns that play in your Grandparents lounge rooms). What is a Cowboy right now, primed with space and time, armed with a portal, ready for action. The evolution of the mystic Cowboy steps into this new frontier with an open heart. "This'ere some hippy shit."