Zine Objects and Orientations in/as Arts Research: Documenting Art Teacher Practices and Identities Through Zine Creation, Collection, and Criticism

Abstract

Zine making involves not only the creation of handmade and self-published books, but also local distribution in zine communities, as well as archival processes of zine collecting in university and community libraries. These creative and communal practices, as part of the intellectual discourse known as zine studies, engender valuable arts-based research orientations and implications for art education. This article investigates zines for their potential as objects of research exploring art teacher identities and autoethnography, fandom in zines as a devotional orientation and interdisciplinary form of research methodology, and research questions pertaining to practices of collecting and archiving zine materials in universities and zine communities. Characterized by proliferation in the 1990s and a strong contemporary continuation, zines continue to create distinctly personal and communal spaces for art education reflection.