Helen is a professional artist who works with zines as an art form and has an incredibly rich perspective on the history, politics, and aesthetic practice of zine-making.

A key challenge for any academic intending to make use of zines within their pedagogy is to do with how this may risk ‘taming’ the more radical aspects of the zine form (see, Jones, ‘Anti-Frontiers in Zineing: Zines as Process & the Politics of Refusal, 2024, p. 415). Even as she invited to us to grapple in practical ways with zine-making, Helen challenged us to think critically about the politics of zines when they are taken up within institutional contexts. And we were delighted that she reflected on her own practice in defining zines; she wonders, for example, if her own work – once it is funded and exhibited and archived – can be understood as a zine.

Key to our understanding of zines is that they are non-professional practices with non-professional materials; they do not have a sense of aesthetic correctness, and they are often ephemeral and strategically educational – outside of educational institutions. Daniel P. Jones’s demands that we consider zines as process rather than product, and in doing so, we might resist the full absorption of this radical form within the neoliberal university.

In the spirit of process and practice, Helen invited students to create their own zines. It was a joyful break from more traditional styles of academic learning and wonderful to see students cutting, pasting, collaging, drawing, and generally enjoying the manual (and indeed political) work of zine-making.