Zine: Magic & Joy by Migrant Zine Collective

$12.50

Payment options available with 4 instalments of $3.13 using Afterpay at the checkout

“Magic and Joy” is a community zine created by Migrant Zine Collective in collaboration with Marc Conaco and Louie Bretaña’s exhibition Syokes at Objectspace in 2020. The wonderful pages you’ll be reading are creations from our zine workshop facilitated by Helen Yeung, featuring a range of artists, writers, creatives, activists and academics, with a focus on personal and cultural objects which connect us to our lands and communities from diaspora.

Using Marc Conaco and Louie Bretaña’s exhibition, Syokes, as a starting point, workshop participants created a collaborative zine that looks into diwata or spirits that have been present in their own lives. This included looking within our personal histories of living or non-living objects that were special to us. A teddy bear, a particular tree, a gift, a beloved pet, a song or something entirely different of sentimental value. For those in diaspora, these objects can hold significant meaning, and at times are all we have to remind us of where we come from. These are objects that give us strength, guide us, make us smile or keep us company, and are infused with memories and love.

Migrant Zine Collective is an activist-based zine collective aiming to amplify, celebrate and share the voices of migrants of colour in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The collective was founded in 2017 upon the release of GEN M (short for “Generation Migrant”), a zine collated and self-published by Helen Yeung in the hopes of celebrating her Hong Kong-Chinese diasporic background, along with the personal stories of other migrant youth in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). The collective is currently co-organised by a passionate group of women of colour, and has since expanded its work to a range of zine workshops, community events, pop-up libraries and digital collaborations both locally and around the globe. Migrant Zine Collective offers a space that is critical of the white-dominated power structures that govern our lived experiences as people of colour. We aim to open up a space where people of colour are able to unapologetically speak up, discuss and unpack critical issues in mainstream society such as sexism, racism, classism and other forms of inequality. This means individuals that come to our workshops, events or submit to our zines are free to express themselves in whatever way they see fit, whether this be language, emotion or tone. Our work is not intended to be palatable to a white audience or dominant groups, therefore we do not encourage any tone-policing of sentiments shared by participants and contributors. Furthermore, as tauiwi (non-Māori) people of colour living on colonised land, we recognise and are committed to confronting the ongoing legacy of colonisation, systemic racism and racial politics that are specific to Aotearoa.