WAIL l.a.b., Second Floor November 8, 2014 through February 8, 2015

Word and Image Lab (WAIL) was established in 2009 by a group of Miami artists and writers who met to discuss the possibility of a book arts center in Miami and other interdisciplinary initiatives. What resulted was an artists & writers run organization that creates a community conversation and opportunities for collaboration around writing and the visual and performing arts. In 2014, WAIL & MOA+D officially formed a partnership and instituted a pop up project gallery appropriately named l.a.b. (literature, art, books).

For their first curated exhibition, WAIL invites Cristina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami, to curate the exhibition entitled “Zine-o-mania: A World of Fanzines from the University Of Miami Special Collections.”

Favretto explains “Zines are (fairly) simple to make, but difficult to describe. They’re manifestos, ruminations, screeds, artistic statements… they’re pre-Facebook, pre-Instagram, pre-Twitter, post-magazine and very, very fascinating. “Zines” is short for “fanzines,” printed vehicles allowing fans of a certain genre, singer, artist, movement, etc. to communicate with one another. They have a long history. One could even argue that the firebrand political pamphlets of Thomas Paine were zines in their own right, but most zine scholars would place their heyday between the advent of cheap mimeograph technology in the 1920s and the punk, do-it-yourself (DIY) revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s”. This exhibition seeks to give visitors an overview of the “who, what, when, where, why” of the zine world, with an emphasis on South Florida publication but occasional forays to New York City, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, illustrating why in this age of digital everything, zines still endure and are in fact growing in popularity.

Zine-o-Mania! A World of Fanzines from the Special Collections at the University of Miami will run through Sunday, February 8th, 2015. Additional workshops, readings and panel discussions are planned and will be announced in the coming months.