Year: 2016 - 2020
Brand: Squelch Zines
Squelch Zines
“Squelch Zines is a collective of five people who aim to bring zine culture to the surface of Singapore media by bringing together “zinesters” across the island. They host a curated library of over 300 zines by local artists and writers. The collective also hosts pop-up stores and exhibitions, and participate in the annual Singapore Art Book Fair.”
- Vice
Brand: Squelch Zines
Squelch Zines
“Squelch Zines is a collective of five people who aim to bring zine culture to the surface of Singapore media by bringing together “zinesters” across the island. They host a curated library of over 300 zines by local artists and writers. The collective also hosts pop-up stores and exhibitions, and participate in the annual Singapore Art Book Fair.”
- Vice
︎Singapore Art Book Fair
With little to no exposure for local artists to showcase their artwork in the Zines subculture, the general notion in the community is that they are afraid and timid of what the public might perceive from their zine’s messages. On top of that, the zine subculture has been hidden and almost forgotten for the longest time - especially so in the current digital age.
Collaborating with local publisher Books Actually, Squelch Zines created a local event - Singapore Art Book Fair - with the intention of bridging different artists around the world to showcase their individual creative work to the public and also to other fellow artists. This sparked a movement that helped enabled artists all over the world to be invested in their own zine community and subconsciously, encouraged everyone that is it possible to create your own zines as the beauty of it is that, there are no ceilings, and there’s no right or wrong.
With little to no exposure for local artists to showcase their artwork in the Zines subculture, the general notion in the community is that they are afraid and timid of what the public might perceive from their zine’s messages. On top of that, the zine subculture has been hidden and almost forgotten for the longest time - especially so in the current digital age.
Collaborating with local publisher Books Actually, Squelch Zines created a local event - Singapore Art Book Fair - with the intention of bridging different artists around the world to showcase their individual creative work to the public and also to other fellow artists. This sparked a movement that helped enabled artists all over the world to be invested in their own zine community and subconsciously, encouraged everyone that is it possible to create your own zines as the beauty of it is that, there are no ceilings, and there’s no right or wrong.
︎Mad For Sam Party x Kult
Capping off the last event for Singapore Art Museum, Squelch Zines was invited to be part of this event that brought together a celebration of a number of Singapore’s leading art brands and community leaders, in collaboration with Kult.
Created a pop up library for all visitors to take a look and browse through the different zines that Squelch has been collecting through the years. The response ended up great with more people being interested in discovering more about zines, and in creating their own - eventually submitting it and be held in Squelch’s pop up zines library.
Capping off the last event for Singapore Art Museum, Squelch Zines was invited to be part of this event that brought together a celebration of a number of Singapore’s leading art brands and community leaders, in collaboration with Kult.
Created a pop up library for all visitors to take a look and browse through the different zines that Squelch has been collecting through the years. The response ended up great with more people being interested in discovering more about zines, and in creating their own - eventually submitting it and be held in Squelch’s pop up zines library.
︎Deszinenation: Ground Zero Exhibition
Given the progressing digital age, the saying that “print is dead” couldn’t be any truer and it raises the questions, “How relevant are zines in our expanding digital age?”, “What defines a zine, and what are its limitations?”, “Can a zine be digital?” and “What happens when a traditionally gritty and self-initiated medium evolves into a product of high production cost in recent times?”
Introducing Deszinenation: Ground Zero, an exhibition that examines the zine, a medium adopted by various subcultures and movements. The exhibition was meant to look forward to new works, an augmented reality showcase predicting the future of zines, interactive installations and more.
Deszinenation: Ground Zero explored why the first zine publications came to the forefront, and how this medium has evolved from being tools of counter-culture into an experimental outlet for creative individuals to uncover new ways of expression.
Created the whole exhibition with the message to break the ceiling on what zines are supposed to be. As the idea of zines are meant not to have any rights or wrong, we created a digital zine with the advancement of digital augmented reality; digital zines. Had a good response on that as well.
Also, there’s also the classic Squelch pop up library for audience to actually enjoy the different zines available. In addition to that there are also zines making workshop whereby we taught the public how easy and carefree it is to actually create your own zine.
Given the progressing digital age, the saying that “print is dead” couldn’t be any truer and it raises the questions, “How relevant are zines in our expanding digital age?”, “What defines a zine, and what are its limitations?”, “Can a zine be digital?” and “What happens when a traditionally gritty and self-initiated medium evolves into a product of high production cost in recent times?”
Introducing Deszinenation: Ground Zero, an exhibition that examines the zine, a medium adopted by various subcultures and movements. The exhibition was meant to look forward to new works, an augmented reality showcase predicting the future of zines, interactive installations and more.
Deszinenation: Ground Zero explored why the first zine publications came to the forefront, and how this medium has evolved from being tools of counter-culture into an experimental outlet for creative individuals to uncover new ways of expression.
Created the whole exhibition with the message to break the ceiling on what zines are supposed to be. As the idea of zines are meant not to have any rights or wrong, we created a digital zine with the advancement of digital augmented reality; digital zines. Had a good response on that as well.
Also, there’s also the classic Squelch pop up library for audience to actually enjoy the different zines available. In addition to that there are also zines making workshop whereby we taught the public how easy and carefree it is to actually create your own zine.