Fanzine at School

Date: 11 November 2022

Information session about fanzines and self-publishing at José Estêvão School Group.

O Agrupamento de Escolas José Estêvão está a implementar o Plano Nacional das Artes. In line with numerous other projects in which the school is involved, the National Arts Plan makes particular sense here, as this is a school offering artistic education in the fields of visual arts, photography, and design.
As part of the activities included in the National Arts Plan, the school will create a fanzine. And to understand what exactly a fanzine is, the school welcomed art director Miguel Correia to its multipurpose space. A former student of the school, Miguel Correia is the editor of the fanzine “Ultra Violenta,” published in Aveiro. He is also a promoter and collector of various graphic objects related to the fanzine universe (all documented on the website fanzine.pt). Miguel returned to his school and brought with him part of the fanzine collection he curates. Many and very different from one another.

The multiple and highly varied possibilities that the fanzine allows (particularly regarding format, content type, graphic composition, type of publication and distribution) make it evident how difficult it is to find a clear, black-and-white definition for this object. In reality, the best way to understand it is through experience.
To see, touch, hold, flip through, read one fanzine, and then another, and another. That was the experience the students had on a Friday afternoon. And clearly, they made the most of it.

The publication that the school intends to create will be dedicated to artistic creation and guided by two key vectors:
-The creative freedom of the fanzine, closely related to the type of personal work developed in the form of a Graphic Diary;
-The encouragement (and provocation) of self-editing and self-publishing of personal fanzines, made from graphic material produced by the students themselves and their peers.
After the experience this meeting provided, and daring to define this object, we would say that a Fanzine is… a space of freedom.
And how important it is for students to participate in a fanzine space of freedom.
And how important it is for students to create their own fanzine — a space of freedom.

News on the ESJE NAP website: HERE

See the summary of the event here: