Dive Into the ATL Zine Scene with Printed Matter

Arts

Nov 28

Featured

Recently, zines have been seeing a boom in both popularity and sales. Or, as Tash Nikol, Programming Director for Printed Matter and Atlanta Zine Fest puts it, zines have “become more of a mouthpiece for artists than it was in the past...” Some of this, particularly in Atlanta, can be attributed to the rise of the music scene. However, some of it can also be attributed to the influence of marginalized communities.

“The zine scene is pretty cool, pretty diverse... there’s a large scene that comes from Atlanta’s emerging music scene… but besides the punk and music scene, there is a thriving queer community, pro-woman/female community, pro-people of color…” says Nikol. And Murmur, a multipurpose art space in the South Broad St district, has tried to make sure that these spaces and communities thrive.

On December 2nd, from 6 to 10 P.M., Murmur will present Printed Matter, a fundraiser for the Atlanta Zine Fest. Speaking further with Tash Nikol, she says, “So Murmur started about 5 years ago, and the focus was on zines... they started Atlanta Zine Fest first and then Murmur was created shortly after as a platform to expand that."

This year, it will be celebrating its sixth year and its second year at Murmur; with Tash and Brandon Sheats, who is the Executive Director for Murmur, running the event. As Nikol explains, “All of the funds that we make from the zines and any other type of work go towards organizing and paying artists and putting together Zine Fest for 2018.”

Currently, while the submissions have yet to be processed, there’s already a list of artists signed up for the show. Most of them are newcomers to the scene, however, there are several ‘veterans’ of the event, like Alexa Lima. Aside from excluding content that’s harmful to marginalized groups, there’s no submission guidelines, so each one will possibly have their own unique voice and take.

Going over what to expect, Tash says, “I know in the past, like Zine Fest this year, we received a lot of beautiful content around people with ancestral lineage or some of the things they deal with, on self and personal healing, cyclist community content, all types of work—some of it that’s just expression and visual work.”