Your memories are escaping: make zines !

Nadia Hussein looks at the art of zine making and how ones memories can be preserved through this

Every year from the moment December begins, I have a crisis. It begins with the question: where are all my memories? This crisis is only made worse by the fact that New Year's Eve beckons in another year of existence for me (in short: it’s my birthday).

This crisis isn’t a unique experience - many people experience a similar feeling at the start of a new year, hence all the resolutions to take more photos or ‘live in the moment’. I collect bits and bobs - like the mushrooms that I turn to at the end of each year on my shelves - to capture memories, yet I still feel the need for more documentation.

Nadia’s record of her mushroom collection

It's a tin-foil-hat opinion but I’m suspicious of the “archives” that Instagram, Snapchat and BeReal offer. I remember hearing nightmarish stories about people losing their entire Snapchat library when I was in secondary school. A friend’s loss of her entire photo album recently drove me to panic, so I impulsively printed 200 photos from 2024. I worry about a future where all my digital memories cease to exist – I obsess over having physical copies of things – but then I start to worry again about overconsumption. During my most recent crisis, I planned to make zines to keep my memories intact. It’s February, and I haven’t started yet – maybe writing this piece will hold me accountable and soon my Year of 2024 zine will be complete.

Zines are what you make of them

Zines (shortened from “magazines”) can be as long as you want them to be, perfect for capturing snapshot moments in your life. They are fluid booklets that you can define in any way you’d like. Speaking to Yuki Holley, founder of stuffd zine and co-curator of the recent EchoLocate exhibition at Queen’s, I came to the conclusion that we cannot be too prescriptive when defining zines.

Cambridge’s zine scene offers many zines produced to a higher quality than a casual zine made with friends. My conversation with Yuki made me realise it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have some zines that are so highly produced. Most are college-based literary zines, which provide a low-risk outlet for budding writers who want their work read. Moreover, a zine that accepts submissions creates an interactive experience that can be dynamic and exciting. While some zines focus on creative writing, others serve a different purpose, like Gender Agenda’s zine which offers a platform for feminist education and opening conversations about sexism in Cambridge.

Craft your own antidote to the fear of losing your memories

However, zines for memory-keeping do not need to be any more than a space to store memories. You are not restricted to photos: you can accompany memories with writing, drawings and much more. The production value of a zine for memory-keeping doesn’t need to have the produced quality of zines like Gender Agenda’s because the point is to keep them intimate and personable.

Advertising for stuffd zine by Yuki Holley

Above is a picture of stuffd being promoted through a poster. Yuki describes the zine as ‘anti-social media’ so it is promoted through postering, chalk drawings and hosting a launch party when a new zine is finished. The lack of social media makes it a more intimate experience as people are meant to stumble upon it rather than be pushed towards it by an algorithm. Stumbling upon the zine becomes a memory in its own right! Made by three friends gathering, spending some time together, getting crafty for a zine to be shared with other friends, stuffd epitomises memory-keeping. It is casual but not unceremonious.

Creative zines offer new ways to imagine memory

Esther Crasnow’s zine, Clothes We’d Save from the Fire is made by them and their friends collaboratively. Esther says that clothes ‘protect our sense of self when we feel vulnerable and they express something about our environment which we couldn’t say in words’. Esther only advertised their zine on their Instagram bio - I didn’t know what it was at first but I was glad that my curiosity told me to click. 

Images of Esther Cransnow’s zine: Clothes we’d save from a housefire

The topic of the zine is self-evident and simple. It’s a prompt that anyone could be inspired by; anyone can make and personalise this zine. This zine presents memories in an interesting light because each item of clothing - each memory - does not relate to one sole moment but to many. Clothes have their own history and the clothes you are wearing now might become part of a memory in the future. By putting these clothes into a zine, it reminds us that we don’t have to remember in a linear manner. Instead, we can flit through memories without any order and collage them together. 

I wonder… If Esther and their friends were to remake this zine in the future, would this zine have changed the clothes they’d choose to save?