Public lecture
Thursday, 11 September 2025, 7 pm
DobraVaga, Adamič-Lundrovo nabrežje 5, Ljubljana
Zines (self-published magazines) are a tool for communication. As an art form with no barriers of entry, they provide a platform for grassroots organisers and marginalised communities, but they also have space for personal reflection, creative journeys, and proud attempts to break down the ‘expectations of excellence’ demanded by our creative culture. Throughout their history, they have been used by artists and communities alike to express themselves, build movements, and tell the world who they are, in their own way.
Glasgow Zine Library, a self-publishing charity that has been operating since 2012, is now the grateful host and conserver of over 4000 catalogued zines, whose own histories range from the 1950s to now. Their topics range from art and photography to social justice causes and personal diaries. But Glasgow Zine Library uses zines as a starting point, not an end point. As an active community space, it sees over 9000 visitors a year who engage with its community-focused programme of events and free resources. In this relaxed talk by co-director Chris Yeoh, you will see how, led by the principles of zine culture, GZL aims to provoke people to use the same mindset key to zine-making (DIY, egalitarian, and democratic) in their own lives and in the way that they participate in their community.
The event will be held in English.
Free entry.
This year, the focus of World of Art’s series of public events is contemporary zines at the intersection of art and community.
- Wednesday, 10 September, DobraVaga
7 pm – ZINE VITRINE | Nina Prader: Plant Libraries – Here to Express!, exhibition opening
- Thursday, 11 September, DobraVaga
3 pm – Nina Prader: Community Zine Ships – Ahoy, Power Lines!, workshop
6 pm – Nina Prader: The Library Is an Event – Enter the Reading Ring!, lecture
7 pm – Glasgow Zine Library: The Radical Present of Self-Publishing, lecture
Chris Yeoh is a co-director of Glasgow Zine Library, a community art space and archive in Scotland, having started as a volunteer in 2018. Through the library’s outreach programme, he works with groups, schools, and universities across the country to spread the power of zines to change the minds and lives of individuals and communities, distribute knowledge and democratise information. His journey through the workings of what was once a small community group, and is now an established charity, has given him insight into how zine culture can be an experience that holds radical relevance for people on both a personal and a universal level. (Photo: Basharat Khan)
Original text: Chris Yeoh
Organised by: World of Art/SCCA-Ljubljana, DobraVaga/Kino Šiška
Supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture
