Second Session (25th Jan) - W14

 On the second day of the workshop, I was still quite nervous as it still involved explaining what had to be done to make the main zine. I was most worried about not being able to explain the process correctly. The pressure was off slightly as the first part of the workshop would be taken up by the explanation of risograph printing by the Print Bureau. What also helps is that I would recognise the participants from the first day. However, I was mostly excited to get to the third day where it would be up to the participants as they made their pages and I could take more of a back seat and see the zine come together.

The group in the Print Bureau getting a demonstration of the Risograph printer from Ben.

One success of today's session was that it felt good to see people using the tracing paper like I had suggested and that it was helping people figure out how the layers would work. I felt that this idea was the most that I had contributed, in terms of actually changing and improving on the structure of last year's zine workshop. I feel proud that my idea was useful in helping people. Moreover, the pamphlets were able to serve their original purpose as one participant joined us, after not being able to make the first session, and I was able to give them my pamphlet to catch them up on the first session.

My example using tracing paper, demonstrating how people might want to plan their pages.

Myself talking to one of the participants about what she was making.

We spent this session, after the demonstration, brainstorming the concept of being an outsider and what kind of visuals we can include in the zine to talk about this. Alot of people seemed more reluctant to talk about deeper topics but we didn't try to force participants to talk about anything they didn't want to. We did end up having some good discussions which translated to some great mindmaps. It was good to notice what similar words were being written across a lot of different mindmaps. I think, although people were more reluctant to speak out loud about deeper topics, this exercise was useful in giving people a bank of ideas to draw from for the final pages.

Mindmaps made by the group exploring what it means to be an outsider.

There were unfortunatley a couple people who couldn't make it to today's session however, it was a lucky coincidence that the people who had to miss the session were already familiar risograph printing. This was great as we didn't have to worry about explaining how working in layers would work. Moreover, most people in today's session weren't making their actual pages on this day so we decided to leave voting on the colours till the next session. Therefore, the people who missed this session would have a say in what 3 risograph colours we could print in, which would also still be before most people started their final pages. 

Most participants spent the session figuring out the layers using the tracing paper and making backgrounds for their final pages. I was also happy to see that somepeople had brought in their own materials, which I had asked everyone to do last session. It showed me that people will actually listen to what I say despite me not having the authority of a lecturer. We did end up running out of time to talk about the front and back page but Jess reassured me that we would have time to discuss it in tomorrows session.

Myself, talking to the participants about their ideas while making the mindmaps.